


Clarity

by FollyOfWinchester



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animagus, Blow Jobs, Depression, Dissociation, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Angst, Grimmauld Place, HP: EWE, Hallucinations, Hand Jobs, Headcanon, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied Masturbation, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kissing, Love Before Sex, M/M, Memory Charms, Men Crying, Mental Anguish, Minor Character Death, Near Death, Orphans, Patronus, Plotty, Post-Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Potions, Self-Harm, Splinching, Suicidal Thoughts, Theft, Wandless Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-19 04:49:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 20,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4733321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FollyOfWinchester/pseuds/FollyOfWinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unemployed layabout Harry Potter takes in a homeless Draco Malfoy after Obliviating him at his own request.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rubbish

**Author's Note:**

> ***ONLY THE FINALE (CHAPTER 15) IS EXPLICIT! THIS IS NOT PWP! I DON'T WANT TO DISAPPOINT ANYONE!***
> 
> The first eight chapters are from Harry's POV, and the rest are from Draco's because he's the BEST and I save the best for last. 
> 
> I am red-blooded American, so please let me know if any of the dialogue or descriptions sound jarringly non-British. This fic was most graciously beta'd by [starlightoffandoms](http://archiveofourown.org/users/destinyofdreams) and [Mertiya](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya), and I am eternally grateful! :3
> 
> I don't own the world in which this takes place and I do not profit monetarily from anything herein.
> 
> For some reason, [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGKaPCewPiY) really reminds me of this fic.

A lot of things left Harry when Voldemort died, the visions, the ability to speak Parseltongue, the blind conviction to keep going at any cost. But not the memories. Not the nightmares. Not the cold, lonely reality that he had been nothing more than a tool in Dumbledore's vast toolbox of "Voldemort fix-it" supplies.  _Perhaps a hammer_ , he thinks to himself as he fiddles with the latch on the bin,  _or a great, bloody spanner_.

Harry hangs onto these brief moments of clarity, in which he can think upon the war and be angry instead of frayed, torn, and broken. He channels the anger into spurts of productivity, asking Kreacher to let him tidy up himself for a few hours or toss his own fan mail into the fire for a day. With rubbish in hand, he makes for the quiet alley behind Grimmauld Place.

"Today will be a  _great_  day," he mutters sardonically to himself as he pushes the door open.

Once in the alley, Harry is reminded of Little Whinging, though in an almost pleasant way. He thinks of the peaceful moments he used to cobble together from trips to the bin, taking his time (but not  _too_  much time) and smiling to himself (but not to  _anyone_  else) as he let the "fresh" air seep into his autonomy-starved body. He sighs. "Freedom is a funny sort of thing, isn't it?" he muses to himself.

A sudden stutter of the bins against the wall and Harry is on guard. His wand is out of his waistband and into the air in under a second. He stoops a bit and advances on the offending bin with stealthy footfalls.  _Probably just another fucking rat or a—_

A disheveled man scrambles up from the ground next to the bin in a way that makes him look like a scribble that is trying to straighten itself out on a crumpled sheet of paper. He backs himself against the wall and shuffles away from Harry until recognition brightens his features.

"Potter!" his voice shakes and his eyes glimmer.

The man looks a wreck. His milky white hair hangs in sodden strands that drag across his shoulders. His face is coated in what looks like it could be a beard, but reminds Harry of sandy sea foam instead. His shirt and trousers might have been nice at some distant point in the past; that is, until they were worn daily for possibly several years. But Harry's name said with that voice, that intonation, speaking to a mix of relief and indignation, wakes Harry to a pristine clarity he hasn't felt since the war ended. His focus sharpens and the air returns to his lungs.

"Malfoy?"

Draco lunges at him and reaches for his wand, arms frantically swiping as Harry drops the rubbish he's been holding and steps decidedly backward into the alley. Harry begins the movement to cast a spell and his tongue starts the words when Draco unexpectedly dives into his waist, bowling them both other. Harry is no stranger to casting under duress and has another spell in the works when Draco's desperate voice reaches him again, "Obliviate me!" Harry pauses in consternation and it's just long enough for Draco to get a hold of his wrist and attempt to wrest the wand from between his fingers. Or drag it to press into his forehead?

Draco's hands tremble vigorously and the wand runs a track of random red marks across his pallid skin as he pleads, "Do it! DO IT! Potter,  _Harry_ , Obliviate me!"

"What? I don't—" because he doesn't. Harry doesn't understand anything about the present moment, Draco straddling his stomach, looking homeless, forcing Harry's wand against his own forehead, and asking to be Obliviated.

Draco interrupts him, stuttering over his words as he continues to tremble, "He's, he's dead, the guards at Azkaban and...and Mother, she simply couldn't keep living. They took it, they took...they took  _everything_ , my home, my parents, my life. I..." he stares down at Harry and then his eyes fly open wide as he shrieks, "I DON'T WANT TO REMEMBER!"

~*~

With an arm around Draco's slumping shoulders and against his better judgement, Harry leads him ( _Draco_ fucking _Malfoy_ , his mind supplies, as though he could forget) into the kitchen of his godfather's house. He makes a gesture toward the table and attempts to settle Draco into a sitting position, but he resists.

Draco shrugs off Harry's arm, still trembling and voice wracked with dry sobs, "What are you waiting for? Do it."

Harry crosses his arms, "Why?"

Draco looks frantic, manic. "Why?! I've just told you why! I don't want to remember!" he chokes out. He wraps his arms around himself and shivers, "I can't _keep remembering_! ...And you're the only wizard I've seen in months," his voice softens, "I've been hiding for so long...and I'm so desperately tired..." his voice trails off.

 _I know the feeling_ , Harry thinks, but then he notices himself again. He isn't remembering. He isn't hiding. He's having a conversation with another wizard, one who isn't Ron or Hermione. Harry's mind hums. He feels in full control of his body. He savors the clarity, crisp as the moment he locked wands with the Dark Lord.

A hysteric laugh rips from Draco's throat, "Actually, I've changed my mind. Kill me. Honestly, I can't fathom why you haven't done as much already. It would be deliciously ironic, wouldn't it?" Voice sharpening by the minute, he laughs again, "Kill me, Potter."

Harry winces and shakes his head. _No more death_ , he begs himself. He straightens up, "Fine, right, you want Obliviated, do you?"

A self-satisfied smirk betrays itself at the corners of Draco's mouth and a strangely familiar mixture of mischief and resentment rise in Harry's gut. _It was a ploy to get me agreeing! He's winding me up, the prat!_ The urge to jeer back at Draco's improper amusement at the situation is squelched quickly by the looming seriousness of what they are negotiating between them. Harry sighs, "How much do you want gone, then? I'm assuming certainly sixth year on—"

"All of it."

"You mean, what, your entire life? Malfoy, I don't know if—"

"No, you pillock, all of Hogwarts," Draco spits with a snarl that flashes an overlay of the pressed, poised socialite of the past before Harry's eyes. The bully of his childhood is most certainly there under all that hair and grime.

An errant thought strikes Harry, "But, Malfoy...you'll be a sitting duck without your memories. You'll get yourself killed!"

"All the better! At least I'll go feeling like I did when I was a first year, excited and self-righteous and," he falters, "and clean of certain...stains of the past," he rubs his left forearm, "Pure again." 

Harry's eyes sting at the admission. He's thought as much himself in the silent hours alone in Sirius' old room, imagining what it would be like if he could have another go at everything after hearing the words "yer a wizard" out of Hagrid's mouth. Harry can feel his resolve fracturing. He lets his arms drop to his sides. He looks away and then back at Draco's destitute form again. "Alright. Yes, I'll do it." 

"Master Harry?" Kreacher's voice filters into the kitchen. 

Harry looks over at Kreacher, who is peering at them from the doorway. _How long has he been listening in?_ Harry wonders. He shakes his head, "You can't tell him, Kreacher. You can't say anything to him that he wouldn't know before going to Hogwarts, alright?"

Kreacher nods and walks carefully over to where Harry and Draco stand facing one another. He touches Harry's knee in a way Harry has discovered helps to center him on the here and now when his memories overwhelm him. "Kreacher will not say anything, Master Harry," he nods. "Master Draco," he bows deeply and leaves the room.

Draco, apparently shaken by Kreacher's sudden appearance, lets out a soft sob and lifts his eyes to Harry. "Do it," he whispers.

Harry tenses and raises his wand until the end is mere centimeters from the bridge of Draco's nose. Despite the situation, everything that has happened, everything between them, neither of them so much as trembles for several beats. Draco finally breaks the silence by sniffing, not in the dismissive, pretentious way he had about him at Hogwarts, but in a broken, hopeless way that makes Harry's heart break and harden all at once. He squares his shoulders.

"Obliviate."

~*~


	2. Sorting

An hour later, Harry stands in the doorway to Regulus' bedroom having a chat with Kreacher about their unexpected guest, "We can't let him wander off, Kreacher. He'll be killed on sight by any number of people, and now he won't see it coming," Kreacher offers him a small jar of floo powder, "And, no, we can't tell Ron or Hermione, either," he waves Kreacher off after a slightly more insistent offering of the jar, "Come to think of it, we can't tell anyone. He'll just have to stay here until...until I can figure out what to do with him."

Kreacher nods, "Kreacher will get lunch started, Master Harry?"

"Yeah, sure, go on ahead, but leave the dishes. I'll come help in a minute, yeah?"

"Whatever Master Harry wishes," Kreacher bows and heads off toward the kitchen. 

As Harry turns around and steps into the room, Draco's prone form stirs on Regulus' old bed where Harry had carried him after he collapsed from the memory charm. Harry notices that Kreacher has made fine work of Draco's appearance. His hair is fluffy and splayed out on the pillow around his head and his face is smooth and clean. Even his tattered clothing, which Harry had thought unsalvageable, was no match for Kreacher's magic.

Draco sits up and rubs at his eyes. His knees bend and he leans back on his elbows blinking for a moment. In one graceful motion, he swings his legs off the bed, stands, and stretches, seemingly on autopilot. As he reaches up to scratch the back of his neck, he startles and freezes, locking eyes with Harry.

"Hey," is all Harry manages in greeting or explanation.

"Who are you? What on earth are you _wearing_? And why are you in my—" Draco looks around, "Where am I? Whose room is this?" His fingers wiggle absently in his shoulder-length hair, wavy without product or styling, "Why is my hair so long?" He rummages around his chest and thighs, "Where are my pyjamas?" He starts to panic, "Who in the name of Merlin _are you_? I _demand_ an explanation _immediately_!" he drawls out in a way that both fills Harry with ire and makes him wish for simpler days.

"Er..." Harry shuffles in place a bit. He'd tried to prepare a statement for this exact moment, but it all flies out the window with Draco staring daggers at him across the room.

"Well, come on then, you great oaf, spit it out. I don't have all day to gawp about in someone else's bedroom."

Harry grimaces. Why is he harboring this ex-Death Eater bastard again? "I'm Harry, you bloody prick, and this is _my_ house!" Then, remembering that he had some other things to say, "...And there was...an accident. You've lost nine years of your memory. You'll be staying with me for a while until you've...erm...acclimated?" It sounds of shite now he's heard it out loud.

Draco's eyes narrow, "What? Nine years of my memory?" but then his whole face brightens in excitement, "Wait, Harry? Are you Harry Potter?!"

Stunned by the reaction, Harry nods slowly.

"Oh, I've always wanted to meet you! Are we friends? I've done it then, have I? Made friends with Harry Potter?" Draco practically dances in place and clasps his hands together.

Harry wants to laugh. "Erm...sure, Mal— Draco. We're thick as thieves..." Harry trails off, taking his glasses off briefly to rub his eyes. _What the actual fuck is happening right now?_ He focuses on making sure the memory charm has worked. He's certainly not as practiced as Hermione (he winces at the thought), but just wiping a memory clean, rather than tampering with it, requires exactly the type of blunt-force magic he excels at. Just to be sure it's gone off properly, he asks, "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Well, I remember packing my trunk and I remember tucking my owl into his traveling cage...but after that everything goes rather foggy. I know I've done things with people for reasons, but I don't remember the what or the who or the why. Bit like I'm watching a silent shadow play, really," Draco taps the side of his cheek thoughtfully.

That seems odd, but maybe it's just the way the charm works, leaving the ghosts of memories to flesh back out however you want. That's what Gilderoy Lockhart had done, after all. Harry shrugs, "You don't remember Hogwarts at all then, do you?"

"I can't recall a thing," Draco frowns over at him, "You mean to say I've attended Hogwarts? What year am I?" he rolls his eyes and chides himself, "Oh, what a foolish thing to ask. Nine years, so I've already graduated, right, of course." Draco's face lights up, "I _did_ get sorted into Slytherin, yes?"

Harry's face softens fractionally and Draco's face falls, "What? No. No, was it Ravenclaw? Oh, Harry, tell me it wasn't... _Gryffindor_?!"

Harry almost smiles. The muscles in his face responsible for the movement creak and groan from disuse. His expression must look as dusty and dilapidated as it feels because Draco quirks an eyebrow at him. He goes to speak, but Draco beats him to it again.

"Harry, I can't be a Gryffindor, I just absolutely can _not_ be."

Harry shakes his head and lets a genuine smile spread across his face. He has time to string together the first bits of a teasing jib about an imagined Hogwarts sorting ceremony where Draco trundles dejectedly over to the Gryffindor table, "You git, of course you—" but the moment is stolen by bitter reality.

"That atrocious Blood traitor, _cousin Sirius_ , was a Gryffindor," he drawls, venom dripping from every word, "If I had been sorted as such, my father would have—"

Harry takes several menacing steps in Draco's direction. "YOU WILL NOT SAY HIS NAME IN THIS HOUSE, _MALFOY_!" he bites out.

Draco looks up in surprise at Harry as he pants in fury, knuckles white and nails digging painfully into his palms.

"Who? Sirius? But why—" Draco's words are cut by a firm grip around his neck. He splutters and gasps for air as he grapples with Harry's wrists, pleading eyes searching Harry's face for answers to his seemingly innocent questions.

 _He doesn't remember_ , Harry reminds himself, but that hardly quells the rage bubbling and blistering under every square centimeter of his skin. He releases his grip none too gently, which sends Draco reeling backward. He hears Draco's hands slap the bedroom floor as he strides glowering from the room.

~*~


	3. Grief

By the time he's ready to face Draco again, Harry half expects him to have buggered off somewhere, never to be heard from again. However, he finds Draco draped across a sofa in the sitting room with an oversized book planted in the middle of his stomach. His eyes peek over the cover as Harry enters the room and he sits up.

"So sorry, Harry," he drawls with a hint of genuine remorse.

Taken aback, since he'd planned on saying something similar to Draco, Harry blinks at him. "Come again?"

Draco closes his book, "Kreacher's told me that...my mother's cousin was your godfather and that he had come back to live here just a few years ago," Draco looks away, "And that he...died, rather suddenly and not all that long ago." 

_Thank Merlin for Kreacher._ Whatever he had said to Draco had not only kept him inside the house, but also made him apologize to _Harry_ , with a _real_ apology. Harry could get used to this. "Don't mention it, M— Draco. Besides, it's not you who's killed him. It was..." _my fault_ , he finishes for himself. He sighs, "Anyway, I'm sorry I..." he motions vaguely toward his own neck and clears his throat, "Sorry, Draco."

They both stare at each other in silence for a moment.

Draco sets the book down and crosses his legs, "Well, you missed a lovely breakfast, anyway. Or I suppose it was lunch by the time of day."

Harry shrugs and crosses to the couch. He sits slowly on the edge of the cushion and braces his hands on his knees. He swallows, "I imagine you have a few questions."

Draco snorts and then nods, "Kreacher wasn't all that forthcoming. Talked me in circles mostly and told me to save my questions for 'Master Harry.' He's quite fond of you, considering you're the godson of—" Draco abruptly coughs and pretends to clear his throat, "Sorry, just a lot to take in. A house elf of the Black family suggesting to me, Draco _Malfoy_ , that I not insult Blood traitors and Mud— Muggleborns," he waves his arm dismissively in the direction of the kitchen, "Don't worry, he made up for it by endlessly complimenting me on my lavish hair and posh attire. Says Father would be _so_ proud."

Harry doesn't say anything in response. His mind reels with the enormity of it all. One moment he thinks he should floo Hermione to restore Draco's memory immediately because he won't, he _can't_ do this, and he wants to have it out once and for all with fully-in-the-know Malfoy. The next moment he considers telling the whole sordid tale, altering things as though it were Harry, Ron, Hermione, _and_ Draco who were friends and had saved the entire world together. Although, there was one piece of the story that must be told no matter what he decides in the end. Harry lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding in, "Your mother saved my life, you know. She saved all our lives. She was..." It sinks in that Narcissa Malfoy is dead. For all the good his testimony at her trial did to keep her safely out of Azkaban, she was still dead. Maybe if he had defended Lucius as well, she would be alive and Draco wouldn't be, well, whatever he was now. _No more death._ Harry slides his elbows to his knees and covers his face with his hands.

"I...I thought she was so courageous."

Harry hears a gasp next to him and Draco's thigh brushes against his own as he shifts on the couch. He feels a collection of slightly chilly fingers wrap around his right forearm and his eyes sting. It's as new a concept to Draco as it is to him. 

When Draco speaks, it's hardly a whisper, "Harry," the fingers tighten around his arm, "you mean to tell me, Mother, she's..."

Draco's voice is barely audible. Harry has to lift his eyes to Draco's lips in order to make out the words.

"You mean to tell me Mother is...gone?" 

Draco swallows thickly and Harry watches the saliva collect at the corners of his mouth as his bottom lip quivers. He's barely holding it together, they both are. Harry nods, just barely, and then lets a single sob escape. He's just told another war orphan that he'll never see his mother again. He'd promised himself, never again. _No more death._ He covers his mouth with the hand that isn't trapped by Draco's trembling, vice-like grip.

Draco swallows again, his thirst for understanding apparently winning over the avalanche of anguish he must have pressing tears from his eyes and making his chin shake, "But, nine years? She wasn't even 50! How, how did she..."

In that moment, Harry knows what to say, how to talk about it. He pinches his eyes shut and speaks from behind his hand to keep from sobbing uncontrollably, "It was the accident, the same one that lost you your memory." He feels his shoulders shaking. He can't bring himself to say any more.

And then Harry's back hits the cushioning behind him and Draco is wrapping his arms around his shoulders and crying into the crook of his neck and practically sitting on his lap. Before he can even think, Harry's hugging him back and rubbing his shoulder blades and crying just as hard into Draco's mop of overgrown hair. Thinking about Draco's hair makes him think about finding him orphaned and homeless in an alley, which makes him think of _everything_ and he cries even harder.

~*~


	4. Scars

After what could have been minutes or hours or days (probably about 30 minutes by the fading light filtering in through the windows), Harry and Draco are both reduced to little more than sniffing and hiccoughing. Wiping a hand over his eyes one last time, Draco finally slides out of Harry's lap to sit rocking forward and back with his fingers laced together. Harry stays still for a moment, mind raw, but mercifully blank. 

Harry stands and sets a hand to Draco's shoulder. Draco stops rocking and tilts his head against Harry's forearm. 

"Tea?" Harry offers. He more feels than sees Draco nod in response.

Harry walks to the kitchen in a bit of a daze. He feels exhausted from crying, both physically and mentally. But he feels...light? Cleansed? Rejuvenated? Harry had never cried with anyone like that after the war. Yes, he'd cried with plenty of people, not least of whom were Ron and Hermione, but never like _that_. There was always a distance, crying _for_ them, not _with_ them. No one ever cried for Sirius the way he cried for Sirius. And no one had cried for Narcissa Malfoy, full stop.

Harry finishes up the tea and turns to find that Kreacher has given Draco a blanket. He has it wrapped around his shoulders, but shrugs it off onto a nearby chair and rounds toward Harry to pick up his cup. Harry smiles fondly at him. The kitchen table takes up much of the floor space and Draco must shimmy by Harry to get to the countertop. In doing so, he gently taps Harry's elbows and murmurs "Behind you" into his neck. The touch and ghost of breath send a thrill down Harry's spine and his cup rattles on its saucer. Draco whispers an apology and they stand sipping their tea in companionable silence.

The tea warms them up and after a second cup Draco is in high enough spirits to attempt some conversation, "I'm quite compelling, aren't I? Fit if I dare say so myself, which I do dare, of course," he tilts his chin up and rests his fingers in an L-shape across his jaw as he gazes at his own reflection in the glass of the cupboard, "Kreacher thinks I'm rather too thin, but how can you argue with such _striking_ cheekbones?" he drawls as he sifts position and tries out a series of emotions on his "new" face.

"Kreacher only recommended that Master Draco eat to keep up his strength."

"Don't think I can take care of myself, then? Sounds a whole lot like criticism to me. Criticizing a Malfoy? You're getting brazen in your old age, Kreacher."

"Kreacher would never!"

"Oh, now questioning my judgement, are you?" Draco lets out a good-natured laugh and Kreacher splutters in dismay.

Draco sounds like he's putting on a show, forcing a chipper attitude in the wake of their afternoon sob session, but Harry can't help smiling at Draco's feigned offense and Kreacher's desperate attempts at reconciliation. He feels better than he has felt since...fifth year? Earlier? _Have I ever felt this great?_ His stomach chooses this moment to remind him that he missed lunch and is, in fact, great, but absolutely famished.

As if reading his mind (or maybe hearing his stomach), Draco lets Kreacher off the hook with a flourish, "Kreacher, what's say we put this whole messy business behind us, shall we? I'm willing to forgive your transgressions if, and _only_ if, you make one of your fabulous flourless chocolate tarts as an after-supper treat for your two most stunning and absolutely not too thin masters," he winks at Harry. 

Harry startles, but then grins. _Is that really Draco Malfoy standing in my kitchen sharing tea and jokes and laughs with me?_ He winks back.

Kreacher bows so low that his face nearly rubs the ground, "Of course, Master Draco. Kreacher is humbled by your generosity." 

Draco watches Kreacher hurry around the kitchen for a moment and then turns back to Harry, "Anyway, in the meantime, I can tell when I've had a cleaning charm in place of a good scrub. Harry, where do you keep the towels?"

~*~

After getting Draco's toiletries sorted, he's making his way back downstairs to help Kreacher with dinner when he hears a bloodcurdling scream.

"HARRY!"

Harry Apparates directly to the bath at the terror in Draco's voice. He finds him standing with a towel hung loosely around his hips, staring wide-eyed into the mirror, and running his fingers across his chest.

Draco turns to face him, "How did _this_ happen?"

Harry looks toward his left forearm, but finds it pale and unmarred. A glamour charm. _Kreacher, you think of everything._ Momentarily confused, Harry's eyes follow Draco's shaking fingers to a bit of mauve scar tissue just under his breastbone. Then Draco drops his hand to provide a better view and Harry gasps. Three long, thick, white scars run diagonally across Draco's torso: one from his collarbone to his armpit, one from the side of his ribcage to his belly button, and the most grievous of them from one side of the base of his neck all the way down to the opposite hip bone. The angry colouration in the middle of the largest one speaks to the severity of the original wound. The realization hits him and Harry has to look away.

A strangled "Harry?!" brings his eyes back to the expanse of poorly healed skin in front of him. Without thinking, he reaches up and runs his fingers along one of the scars. He swallows and shakes his head, "You never told me." And it's not a lie. _Why didn't you tell me?_ he thinks, but then the answers rush into his mind almost immediately. _Because ___I _did this to you. Because we were on opposite sides of a bloody_ war. _Because we were never friends, so why_ would _you tell me?_ Noticing that Draco is now watching the patterns his hand is tracing, he pulls away as though burnt by the touch. Draco blinks at him with an unreadable expression and Harry's only panicked thoughts are _too intimate_ and _must flee_ , "I'll, erm...just...leave you to it then." Before Draco can press him for more information, he rushes off down the stairs.

_~*~_


	5. Trappings

While Draco freshens up for dinner, Harry busies himself with Kreacher in the kitchen and tries not to think about Draco's weight on his lap or Draco's breath on his neck or Draco's skin under his fingers or Draco's...well, it's better than trying not to think of death and having war flashbacks, anyhow.

Harry looks down at his reflection in the metal serving spoon he is currently polishing. He hasn't had a single episode today. Kreacher hasn't had to restrain him even once so that he wouldn't injure himself. And it's not as though he hasn't thought of the war, of death, of everything in between, but he's been in control, present, _himself_ , the entire time.

"Kreacher, how would you feel if...if Draco stayed with us?"

"Master Harry? Begging your pardon, sir, but he already is."

"No, I meant, if he lived with us. If this became his home."

"Why, Master Draco comes from a long line of pure and noble blood. Kreacher would be most honored to serve him for as long as he lives, sir."

"Right, thought so," he smirks to himself, "and you're not just saying that because I'm a Blood traitor and you're hoping to toss me out onto the street now that we've got a Pureblood in the house, are you?"

Kreacher brandishes the ladle in his hand in Harry's direction, "Kreacher would never! Master Harry is a hero! Never would Kreacher presume to toss—"

Harry laughs, "Kreacher, I'm kidding, I'm kidding."

Kreacher lowers his ladle and returns to cooking. "Oh, of course. Master Harry certainly does know how to try Kreacher's patience, just like Master Regulus," he says, his devotion to Harry shining through his sarcasm. He thumbs Regulus' amulet, "Master Draco's presence is having an influence on you. You remind Kreacher of your time spent hiding here before, laughing and scheming with friends."

Harry sighs, "I know, that's why I think he should stay."

Kreacher just nods and touches Harry's knee.

~*~

"Harry, this simply will not do."

Harry looks up from where he's arranging the place setting for dinner and Draco is right, it won't do at all. The opulent and perfectly tailored shirt and trousers that Draco had been wearing when Harry found him in the alley have been replaced with a glaringly orange Chudley Cannons t-shirt that sits odd on his shoulders and a pair of denims that reach only to Draco's mid-shin. Maybe he should have thought more carefully about which of his clothes he'd chosen for Draco instead of just grabbing whatever was closest and clean. Harry stifles a guffaw against the back of his hand. 

"Oh, don't you start! These are _your_ shabby things in the first place," he throws the shirt off over his head and Kreacher immediately picks it up. "I demand at _least_ a proper shirt this _instant_!" he spits petulantly.

Harry has time to rake his eyes over Draco's exposed flesh for a moment before Kreacher Disapparates them both away. Seeing the scars again acts as a booster shot for whatever strange concoction is brewing in his chest for Draco. He's imagining a soft cheek against his collar bone and wet lips against his neck, when Kreacher reappears and snaps him out of his recollections. Draco trails him by a bit, but when he strolls gracefully back into the kitchen, Harry understands why.

Draco has donned a cream silk button up and charcoal wool trousers covered over top by a dark green and black striped vest and a long, flowing charcoal robe. He stops abruptly, the fabric at his feet pooling with a flutter. He smirks at Harry, "Regulus, apparently, had much better proportions than you."

Harry gawps at him. _Wow._ His mouth goes dry, "You look..." he searches for a Malfoy-ish enough word, "resplendent."

Preening, Draco lifts his chin and stares down his nose haughtily, "That's right, Harry. As you can see," he sweeps his hands in the air along his body, "you are _horrendously_ underdressed for supper."

Harry looks down at his tatty t-shirt and generic denims and nods his head in rapt agreement. They sit down across from one another and Draco quirks an eyebrow when he asks Kreacher to take a seat, too. Kreacher (despite Harry's insistence and the fact that he almost always sits with Harry for dinner) refuses to join them with a bow and leaves the room. Harry suspects it has something to do with their Pureblood dinner guest and Harry's earlier jibbing. As they fill their plates, Draco looks like he is bursting with barely contained curiosity. Harry braces himself and decides that above all else, he doesn't want to lie, because then he'd have to keep track of his lies and that reminds him too much of Dumbledore and Snape and the all rest. He winces, but recovers quickly as Draco starts in with some questions. 

"Why do you treat Kreacher like that, asking him to sit for supper and doing chores for him? Must be bloody embarrassing for the both of you," Draco sneers into his goblet.

Harry sighs, "We've been through a lot together, and I live— lived alone. It's nice to have company and feel useful, I think."

"Well, suit yourself. House elves sitting at the table, Sir—" he forces a cough, "Seriously takes getting used to," he coughs again, "Well, come on then! Tell me what illustrious Hogwarts house was graced with Draco Malfoy's presence for seven years! I suppose Ravenclaw could have been passable, given time to...acclimate," he straightens his collar with a sniff.

Harry ignores the near slip for the more jovial topic of sorting. He laughs, "Oh no, I was just winding you up before. Of course you were in Slytherin, you git."

"Ah ha! I knew it! And you? Harry Potter simply _must_ have been sorted Slytherin!"

"Well, that's the house the Sorting Hat said I should be in." _Not a lie._

"Oh, excellent! And did you make friends with Crabbe and Goyle and the others?"

"What? I..." _Don't lie, don't lie, don't lie._ "We weren't all that close, no, although I did polyjuice myself into Goyle to...er...pull a prank on you once?" Harry finishes hopefully.

"You mean to say, I, Draco Malfoy, made friends with you, Harry Potter, good enough friends for you to take me in after an accident, and _none_ of my peers did as much?"

"Erm...yes?" Harry offers, unsure by Draco's tone his reaction to this dubious information.

"Brilliant! That's marvellous! Oh, wait until I rub it into Crabbe's hulking face! Well, I suppose I already have, haven't I?" he drums his fingers together, giddy with excitement.

Harry winces again. _Crabbe, Vincent Crabbe, another casualty of war._ Harry takes a sip of his drink to wash down the thought, and it is chased by another, "Wait, Draco, I'd've thought you'd want us all to be friends. I'm telling you I wasn't in with any of your pre-Hogwarts mates and...you're okay with that?"

Draco quirks an eyebrow, "Well, I don't know how I acted at the time, but it's different, isn't it? You _chose_ to be my friend. We weren't scheduled school mates from birth because of our parents, so you had a choice in the matter and you picked _me_ over the rest of them. Makes it a bit more like a friendship than a business partnership, doesn't it? As far as I can tell, even from knowing you for, what, half a day, you care more for me than Crabbe or Goyle or even Pansy ever did," he pulls a mock-surprised face and puts his index finger on his chin, "Why, I could almost imagine telling you something private and not having to worry that you'd blackmail me with it," he smirks and lifts his goblet to drink. "Almost. You _are_ still a Slytherin, after all," he finishes in his languid drawl.

Harry doesn't correct him since it wasn't a question and wonders if hiding his Gryffindor paraphernalia would count as quasi-lying or not. Putting that thought aside for later, he rolls Draco's admission that even his friends weren't really his friends around in his head for a moment. He thinks of sixth year, of Draco's hunched form sobbing into a sink. Where Harry had Ron and Hermione and all the other members of the DA, was Draco alone in his efforts for the war? Did any of his friends even know? Was he the only child-made-Death Eater of the bunch? Harry's heart broke for him and he was suddenly desperate to ask fully-in-the-know Malfoy, to hear those memories and find that he did have someone, whether it was Zabini or Nott or anyone, with whom to struggle and survive.

His name and the sound of fingers snapping near his ear wake Harry from his rumination.

"Harry? Your blank stare is getting a tad unnerving," Draco snaps his fingers several more times in front of his face.

Harry adjusts his glasses, "Oh, sorry. You were saying?"

" _I said_ , what sort of spells have I learned? And what's my favorite? What's my best? Do I have a wand? Where is it?" He searches himself quickly and comes up wanting.

Harry's face blanches. He'd meant to give it back, hadn't he? But there just wasn't time. Everything happened so quickly and without pause after Voldemort fell. The safe houses, the Death Eater roundup, the trials after endless trials. He'd had to attend them all, even when he'd never so much as laid eyes on the person sitting in the chair before the Wizengamot. And once Harry was up for air again, his world was crashing down around his feet. Who was he without Voldemort? Without the thoughts and feelings of a terrible dark wizard invading his mind and older and wiser people plotting his life for him? Who was he if his destiny was fulfilled and he was living on borrowed time? Who was he—

Someone is shaking him by the shoulders.

"Merlin, Harry, you're doing it again! What's the trouble? Did Kreacher see fit to poison your food?" Draco pretends to knock on his forehead and then check his temperature with the back of his hand, "Are you feeling faint?"

In the wake of more touching from Draco, Harry panics and Apparates to his room. Once he's done, he feels foolish and tells himself that he came up to his room to retrieve Draco's wand. He finds it stowed where he left it, hidden behind some books on his bookshelf, there in case he had needed it again. He runs his fingers along the smooth wood and briefly considers keeping it forever. Footsteps on the stairs signal time to hide his gold and maroon room from view and he whips over the threshold and closes the door behind him.

Draco glares at him in mild irritation and he holds up his pilfered battle companion in defense, "Sorry, just trying to remember where I left your wand." He looks down at it for a moment before passing it off to Draco, "Treat it well. Neither of us would be here chatting without it."

"Oh," Draco attempts to bend it, then gives it a swish, " _Merci_. Fancy teaching me a few spells before bed? You've got seven years of school on me, after all!" He continues swishing absently in the air between them.

"To be honest, Draco, I'm shattered. How about tomorrow I teach you _both_ our favorite spells and some to spare?" The prospect of something other than moping around and wishing he had buggered off to the afterlife is so beautifully foreign. Making future plans with Draco fills him with the rapturous sense that today really _was_ a great day and that tomorrow might just be as well.

Draco looks as though he wants to protest, but then he merely nods goodnight and opens the door to get ready for bed. As Harry turns to do the same, he sees Draco pause and rest his hand on the door frame in his periphery. Harry glances back over at him.

Draco eyes don't meet Harry's, "Mm, Harry...one last thing. Did the accident, that is, I assume since my clothing is absent...did it happen at the Manor?"

Harry's eyes sting and he nods, "Yeah, a lot of it, anyway."

"And...Father, too?"

Harry nods again.

Draco grimaces, but it doesn't reach the sadness evident on his brow. He looks up at Harry briefly and then disappears through the doorway, the door shutting quietly behind him.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This portrait](http://aprilis420.deviantart.com/art/draco-malfoy-with-long-hair-286692298) is an excellent representation of the way I imagine Draco looking with longer hair wearing Regulus' robes.


	6. Lessons

Harry and Draco had shared a few more amiable words before bed as they brushed their teeth and washed their faces, jeering one another about their respective pyjamas and shuffling past one another around the sink. If Draco had been crying over his father, he did well to hide it. Perhaps he had somehow known that if his mother were to die, his father would be dead as well and he had already cried for both of them earlier in the day. Harry had lain with one hand behind his head and the other splayed out across his stomach just thinking for most of the night. Rather than reliving the horrors of the war, he was processing them, taking in the new information and recasting Draco as a lonely, tortured child forced to act in a grand plot he had no conceivable hope to fathom, just as Harry had been. Perhaps Harry wasn't "The Chosen One," but one out of a matched set of two, "The Boys Who Survived." Consequently, he "woke" in the morning feeling decidedly fatigued, but also peaceful, dreamlike, and with a growing warmth in his chest for Draco.

He's just about to wander down for breakfast when a sharp rap and a cautious "Harry" at his door startle him into a pile of sheets and limbs on the floor. "Coming," he responds as he jumps up, leaving a squid of disheveled fabric behind him.

Draco is already dressed in more of Regulus' finery and takes the stairs two at a time, his robes swirling elegantly behind him. Harry scratches the back of his head and looks down at his grey on grey t-shirt and jogging bottoms in dismay. Maybe he'll raid Sirius' closet after breakfast. He plods down the stairs in Draco's wake, yawning and stretching as he goes.

When he finally flops down at the kitchen table, a steaming cup of coffee is waiting for him and he inhales deeply. He feels Draco's eyes on him and he looks up.

Draco nods at him and then gestures at his own face, "This is all quite odd. Remembering to shave, for example. That's a new one," Draco strokes his chin, "When did I start sprouting facial hair?"

Harry shrugs, "Couldn't tell you. You never bragged about it and your face was always smooth as a baby's arse," he laughs, "Not that you could see the beard anyway. Your hair's as pale as your bloody face."

"Well, congratulations on your sooty chin haze, you dark-haired prat," Draco smiles at him and draws his wand, "Now, where do we start?"

Harry's mischief meter hits the red zone and he covertly grasps the handle of his own wand where it hangs haphazardly out the back of his waistband, "Hm, well, I s'pose we could begin with... _EXPELLIARMUS_!" Draco's wand whips smartly into Harry's hand and he grins and Apparates into the sitting room, fatigue and coffee forgotten.

He hears Draco's footfalls advancing on his position and he hides behind the couch. His muffled laughter gives him away and Draco leaps lithely (surprisingly so for being wrapped in heavy robes) over the back of the couch, pinning him down and tickling him. Harry slaps at his arms, laughing so hard that his sides burn, finally tossing Draco's wand across the room and rolling with laughter as he bounds after it like an overenthusiastic puppy. He stands, brushing himself off as the giggles subside, and starts a sentence, "Alright, ready to try—"

Draco's expression is an intense mixture of amusement and concentration, as if he's out to murder someone, but laugh about it with them as they die, "EXPELLIARMUS!"

Harry's wand tumbles anti-climatically onto the couch cushion in front of him. Harry slips into DA mode in a flash, "Excellent! You've disarmed me first thing, now try summoning my wand to you. Repeat after me: 'Accio Harry's wand.'"

~*~

By lunchtime, Draco has learned a lot about casting the Expelliarmus and Accio spells and Harry has learned a lot about Draco. For one, he gets frustrated and petulant easily and often storms about the room just so his robes billow around him dramatically (at least that's how it seems to Harry). For another, he's a shameless prankster and quickly learns exactly how best to wind Harry up. Apparently, when he's not actively trying to bully and thwart you at every moment, Draco's witty and excitable and downright charming. And so bloody _handsy_. A chill runs through Harry as he recalls all the subtle (and not so subtle) touches from their morning lesson. The delicate caresses of his elbows whenever Draco had walked behind him, Draco's instinctual grab of Harry's forearm whenever something unexpected happened during his attempts at spellcasting, and of course the bout of tickling that started off the morning. There was even the time that Draco had come to stand behind Harry, chin nestled on his shoulder, hands on his upper arms, and chest warm against his back, under the guise of "getting a better view of the wand motion." Even worse, he's prone to whispering things, benign as they might be, right into Harry's ears despite them being the only two people in the room. Harry isn't sure he's doing it on purpose (he _was_ having trouble with the spell and Kreacher _could_ conceivably be listening in), but it's...well...Harry's prick doesn't know the difference. 

Feeling generally put out by enduring Draco's regal appearance in his joggers all morning, Harry decides to don some of Sirius' old clothes (since his Gryffindor robes are right out). Robes go a fair way at concealing certain...natural physiological responses, and Harry's glad for the additional coverage as he finishes his outfit with a long velvet cloak around his shoulders.

Draco bows to him with an unnecessarily exaggerated hand motion as he enters the sitting room and then tugs him by the wrist over to a large, wall-mounted mirror, "Ah, look at that fine pair of proper wizards. Rather more dashing than your jim-jams, yes?"

Harry grins and straightens his shoulders, admiring himself. Draco does the same and they stand posing and laughing until Kreacher calls them to the table.

~*~

Kreacher comes to stand by Harry later in the day while he watches Draco practice levitation charms on various objects in the sitting room. He touches Harry's knee, "You are happy, Master Harry." 

It isn't a question, but Harry looks down and nods in answer anyway.

"Kreacher is deeply honored to finally see it," he drops his hand to take hold of Regulus' amulet around his neck, "Begging your pardon, sir, but Kreacher had been assuming he would see death first."

Harry is struck speechless. As Kreacher makes his way back out of the room, he realizes that, with the strange sanitized version of his boyhood rival he has been gifted by happenstance, familiar yet wholly original, he has founded some sort of utopia-playground in which to experience some semblance of what normal young adults might expect to without Voldemort looming over their entire existence, even if only in the few purloined days before the reality of the outside world forces itself to be acknowledged and shatters their protective bubble. 

Harry sighs. How long will he succeed in keeping this beautiful dreamworld together? A sudden crash as Draco loses hold on a chest of drawers and Harry's moment of introspection is over. He hurries over to assess the damage, an indulgent smile returned to his face.

~*~


	7. Fancy

"Did I fancy anyone?"

Harry sets his fork down and wipes his mouth with a napkin, "Good question," he taps his lips with his index finger for a moment, "You know, I thought you might have had it for Parkinson, but—"

"Ugh, Pansy? Well, _Father_ would have been over the moon, I suppose." Draco takes a sip of the wine Kreacher had selected for dinner.

Harry leans back in his chair, "Huh, how do you mean?"

"A Pureblood debutante from a politically well respected family? What more could a father hope? _I_ , on the other hand, always found her abhorrently flippant and venal."

Harry hopes his blank stare will signal Draco to rephrase.

Draco rolls his eyes, but hides a smirk in his wine, "What I mean is, she was always a terrible gossip, from the very moment she learned to talk, and she couldn't keep a secret for the life of her. Not exactly what an ambitious young Slytherin hopeful imagines as positive traits for a partner. Too easily blackmailed. Shame, I'd hoped to meet someone new at Hogwarts." He takes a sip and sets down his goblet with a thunk, folding his hands neatly under his chin, "What about you?"

"Er...well, I had a rather disastrous run-in with a Ravenclaw," Draco makes a gagging sound, and Harry sticks his tongue out at him before continuing, " _A Ravenclaw_ named Cho. It was complicated and terrible for the both of us. She ended up running off crying on Valentine's."

Draco winces, "Oof. But then, what was there to expect from mixing houses other than outright disaster?"

"You'll love the next, then. Let me preface by telling you that you've jeered me incessantly about it already even if you don't remember, not that you'll be deterred regardless." 

Draco leans forward in anticipation, "Oh, Harry, what've you gone and done then?"

"I dated a Gryffindor."

Draco gasps and covers his mouth.

"Named Ginny, Ginny _Weasley_."

Draco nearly knocks over the table because he stands up with so much assertive force, "No you absolutely did not! Harry Potter, you must be having me on! A _Weasley_? A _Gryffindor Weasley_?"

Harry shakes his head and smirks, "No, it's true. I knew you'd love it. Anyway, before you get too worked up, don't worry. We've ended it."

Draco sits slowly back down and soundlessly mouths "a Gryffindor Weasley" across the table, "You certainly get around, don't you? Next thing you'll tell me you filled the set." He shakes the table again and leans over pointing a finger in Harry's face, "Don't you dare tell me you took a Hufflepuff to bed! I'll expire right here over top of the roast!" He sits back down again and rests his chin on his fist with his head facing away from Harry, mouthing "a Gryffindor Weasley" one more time to an imaginary audience sitting next to him. He straightens back up and pins Harry with a hawkish glare, "And which of the myriad reasons to break it off with a Weasley did you select?" 

Realizing that the amusement value of Draco's reaction probably wasn't worth the pain of the conversation, Harry reluctantly answers the question, "It was...erm...it was because of the accident, actually."

Draco's face falls, but Harry doesn't elaborate. Better that he think Ginny dead than ask questions that would undoubtedly get more difficult, if not impossible, to answer given the circumstance. They sit eating in tense silence for several minutes in the wake of the solemn dialogic turn until Draco breaks in with another question.

"What's it like?"

Harry tries and fails to gracefully chew and swallow the bite of food he's just taken, "Mm, what's what like?"

"You know, snogging."

"Oh, come off it! You must have—"

"Harry, I don't remember!"

 _Oh, right._ "Erm..." he takes a long swig of his wine, "Well, it's, it's quite good, actually. Not sure how to explain it to someone else. Be better if you could just give it a try yourself," he waggles his eyebrows suggestively, thinking of a spell Draco could cast to create a semi-corporeal face. Probably meant for creating distractions instead of snogging practice, but still, "You could—"

"You want to give me a demo, then? Shall we add it to the syllabus, Professor Potter?"

Harry chokes on his wine and his face flushes, "What?!"

Draco leans back and laughs at the ceiling, "Merlin, Harry, of _course_ I know what snogging's like! There are definitely a few vaguely carnal pseudo-memories flitting about in here," he indicates his head and lets out another round of laughter, "My, but your face was certainly a portrait of wizardly decorum just then." He wipes at his eyes before taking on a fervent aura, "Seriously, though, my wine-laden state of being has consequences. Where do you keep the erotica?"

Harry, who has just taken another sip of wine, promptly spreads it across the table in the fine mist.

~*~

Draco, of course, had turned out to be taking the piss with his bawdy comments over dinner, but that didn't stop them from affecting Harry. Particularly the comment about Draco's need to toss off left him with lurid images flooding his mind, not of "Draco" brushing his teeth down the hall, but of "Malfoy" stalking the corridors of Hogwarts.

He'd never really had the time to afford thinking in depth about sex. Sure, he'd fancied Cho and Ginny and he'd imagined them both naked on multiple occasions to auspicious results, but by fifth year his mind was so full of Death Eaters and Unforgivable Curses and Voldemort that there was little space for other things. By sixth year it was Malfoy's suspicious activities and Malfoy's potentially becoming a Death Eater and...yeah, pretty much just Malfoy who'd occupied his thoughts. If circumstances had been different, would he have fancied Malfoy? He certainly _seemed_ to fancy Draco now. _Quite a lot, actually._ Was Harry Potter sans Voldemort a poofter? Couldn't be, though, if the numerous boredom-induced wanks to the suggestively writhing images of busty young witches had anything to say about it. Both ways, then?

To test his theory, he digs around for one of the many free copies of _Witch Weekly_ he'd been sent because they contained articles about him and searches through the pages, looking for a spread on one popular male heartthrob or another. Near the center of the magazine, a few shirtless copies of Ignious Mordrin, a popular model for magical hair product, make provocative eye contact with him from the pages of a biographical feature article. A particularly large image of Ignious leaning back in a chair and running his fingers through his hair brings a bit of color to Harry's cheeks. Both ways it is.

Harry chucks the Witch Weekly aside and lets the thought sink in. Even if he had it for blokes, was he really lusting after Draco, or was it just that spending a solid couple of days with anyone that tactile was bound to get his blood rushing? This is _Draco Malfoy_ he's thinking of. _You know, the bane of your existence for six odd years?_ his mind helpfully supplies. But then he thinks back on sixth year, about the amount of time he spent spying on Malfoy, watching Malfoy, following Malfoy, obsessing over Malfoy, thinking about nothing but _Malfoy_. Harry considers him in one of his sharp black suits prowling down a deserted hallway in his direction, or catching his eye and scowling at him across a crowded room, or shoving him up against a wall and crushing their lips together in a bruising kiss. He's blushing and panting from the thought. That wasn't quasi-innocent Draco whispering sweet nothings in his ear and his mind hadn't gathered the fuel for that fantasy in the last day and a half. _Yeah, I might fancy Draco Malfoy a bit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have removed a scene I felt was just gratuitous pornography for pornography's sake. If you would like a copy of it, comment on this chapter or send me an ask on tumblr.


	8. Upheaval

Despite his revelation, or perhaps because of it, having Draco around is rapidly becoming Harry's new normal. Over the next few days they run through the mainstays of Harry's Hogwarts education, skipping carefully over Sectumsempra and having an absolute riot with Levicorpus. After the third day, Draco abandons his silk sleep shirt when Harry assures him that his scars are brilliant compared to Harry's signature lightning bolt and that he'd do a trade if he could. Now he's seen a half-naked Draco wandering about his home and it only serves to further fuel his alone time. It isn't all a barrel of laughs and secretive wanks, though, and Draco eventually gets around to asking more difficult questions, usually in the lulls of activity during meals and before bed.

"Can we go out for tea today?" ("No, it's too dangerous for you.")

"I should owl Pansy about Kreacher's muffins—" ("Sorry, Draco, no owls until things clear up.")

"Why do you give a flying fuck about Muggles?" ("They're people, too, Draco. Have I told you about my cousin Dudley?")

"Can we...give Mother's grave a visit?" ("Someone might see you and try to finish the job.")

"What happened? How could so many people be killed in a single accident?" ("Draco, it's really hard to talk about. ...I'd rather you remember for yourself than me have to explain it all.")

"Will my memory ever come back?" ("I'm sorry, Draco. I honestly don't know.")

If Harry's honest with himself, Draco was probably prepared by the end of his fifth day in captivity to at least take a stroll down the street, and he needs to start developing a plan for their nebulous future. Taking Draco around could be the first step of that plan. However, Harry has decided privately that he would allow Draco onto the front stoop only after he had successfully produced a Patronus, which they would attempt in the next lesson. For some reason, Harry feels as though Draco has to earn what he considers the crowning glory of his DA days. He has a difficult question of his own for this purpose.

On the morning of Draco's sixth day at 12 Grimmauld Place, Harry stares vaguely down at the last dredges of his coffee and asks the question that's been scratching at the back of his mind since he found Draco amongst the bins, "Draco, what do you think of Voldemort?"

Draco flinches in the seat next to him and narrows his eyes, "Awfully brave of you to say his name like that."

Harry shrugs, "Alright, what do you think of You-Know-Who, then?"

Draco shifts in his seat, "Why do you want to know?"

"Humor me. I've told you plenty of incriminating stuff about myself. You know I grew up living in a cupboard, for Merlin's sake!"

Draco takes in a breath and lets it out very slowly through his nose, "Well," he starts, then stops, then starts again, "Father used to say that he was glad he had gone. He only ever said it to Mother when he thought I was asleep or away somewhere on the grounds, but I still heard him sometimes," he looks down at his lap, "He'd say, 'Evil so pure only draws attention to itself,' or 'There will always be another band of valiant champions of justice to overthrow that kind of blatant tyranny,' or some such. He sounded so Machiavellian about it all, but I think," Draco shakes his head slightly, "I think maybe he was scared. Yes, he wanted us Purebloods to be in power, but I don't think he imagined to accomplish it by killing everyone else. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, though, I think he wanted everyone killed, Muggle lovers and Muggleborns, and I think even Halfbloods," Draco swallows, "like you." 

Harry doesn't flinch, doesn't blink. _Has Draco ever said any of this out loud before? To anyone, much less someone "like me"?_ He listens on, mesmerized as a snake by a charmer's melody.

Draco looks toward the ceiling and rolls his eyes, growing braver with every word, "And that just seemed...quite bloody daft when you think about it. How many Purebloods are even left? There's been so much mixing with Muggles and I always thought if you can have a wizard from a pair of Muggles, what good is pure blood? And even Pureblood families have Squibs sometimes. It's just..." Draco leans toward him conspiratorially, "Never, _ever_ repeat this, to _anyone_ ," he looks Harry straight in the eyes, "Go on, then, promise me!"

Harry is taken aback at first by the request, but nods wordlessly. What is he about to hear that could surprise him more than he's already been surprised?

Draco leans further until his lips drag against the shell of Harry's ear. Harry shivers as he whispers nearly inaudibly, "Aren't we all technically Muggleborns? What I mean is, where did the first Purebloods come from? Were we just planted here?" he leans back a bit and Harry immediately misses the breath tickling behind his earlobe. "Have you ever thought about it?" Draco asks a little quieter than his normal speaking voice.

He hadn't. Harry stares at Draco in wonder and shakes his head.

"Anyway, he's dead, isn't he? Who cares what anyone thinks of him? Good riddance, I say." Draco toys with the hem of his robes, and then he looks up, a cold fear lurking behind his eyes, "I've never said that to anyone. Harry, promise again. Please _promise me_."

Harry wants to kiss him, wants to kiss the worry from his face and tell him Voldemort is gone for good and that everyone will want to hear what he has to say on the subject of Muggleborns because it's bloody fantastic. Before he can stop himself he reaches over to pull Draco toward him, cupping the side of his neck and sliding his fingers into the hair at the nape. Coming back to himself, he panics at the obvious intimacy he's created. In an attempt to recover, he leans into Draco's ear, rather than his lips, and whispers, "I promise." Harry leans back to find that Draco's eyes are shut and his lips are parted. He starts to pull his hand away, but Draco's eyes shoot open and he grabs Harry's forearm to stop the movement. Their eyes meet and they both recoil as if the contact had sent a shock between them.

Harry stares pointedly back into his cup and clears his throat, "Right, glad we got that sorted then."

~*~

The tension is thick during their morning lesson and they don't accomplish much, especially considering Harry can hardly concentrate to produce a Patronus at all, much less a corporeal one. After lunch passes without any additional near misses (Harry purposefully sits across from Draco instead of next to him), some measure of Harry's focus returns and he's able to properly demonstrate the charm for Draco, and afterward Draco succeeds in producing several whiffs of hazy light. As the sun is setting and Kreacher is calling them to dinner, Draco still hasn't achieved anything resembling a wispy glowing animal. As they eat, Draco hypothesizes about the form his Patronus will take.

"It really must be a snake, don't you think?"

"I don't know. Could be a ferret," Harry smirks to himself.

"What, a ferret? Sounds like the sort of Patronus a _Weasel_ -ley would have. Mm, what about a tiger or a lion or something else feline? Might be rather nice."

"Maybe it's a hippogriff," Harry's smirk grows into a full-blown grin.

"Where are you getting these atrocious guesses? What do you know that I don't?" Harry holds up his hands in mock-innocence and Draco rolls his eyes, "Anyway, I wish I could have found out today, rather than having to wait. How will I _sleep_?" he drawls.

"You've only been at it for a few hours, Draco. And producing a corporeal Patronus is quite difficult. It took me a while to learn as well, and I'm—" Draco's eyes narrow and he jumps up from the table. _Stellar work, Harry_ , he mentally kicks himself.

"You're what? Better than me? If Harry Potter can do it, so can I!" Draco storms out of the kitchen and Harry hears a growled "Expecto Patronum" a few moments later. He sighs and follows after him. _Bloody stellar work._

As he watches Draco furiously swiping at the air and less and less eloquently reciting the spell, a peculiar thought hits him. What if Draco's happiest memory is locked up, out of reach by being Obliviated? "Draco, I know this might sound strange, but try _not_ thinking of your happiest memory. Just try... _feeling_ happy. Maybe your lost memory will do the rest?" he offers. _Probably won't work, but worth a shot nonetheless._ "Come on, I'll do it with you one last time."

Draco bristles and turns toward Harry, but then sighs and nods, "Yes, alright. Once more before bed, shall I?" His expression softens and he closes his eyes, intoning "Feel happy" like a mantra.

Draco eventually lets out a satisfied sigh and begins the wand movement. They both swirl their wands and chant the incantation together. To Harry's utter astonishment, a massive flare of light bursts from Draco's wand, revealing a— A STAG?!

Draco falls backward onto his hands and clutches at his forehead, "Another bloody deer," he winces, voice betraying mild disappointment, "How original. Guess I could have had worse. At least I can say I've got the same Patronus as 'The Boy Who Lived.'" He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, "And...I think I've regained a memory. It was, ah," he winces again, "just a flash. It was hot and I was, I think I had my arms wrapped around...you, actually. We were both sweating, flying through, maybe it was...fire? And I just felt so unbelievably...relieved, like I'd been saved, _redeemed_ even." He moves to stand and looks over at Harry, still rubbing circles into his scalp, "Harry, did you...save my life?"

Harry nods in bewilderment at him and watches the two stags as they flick their tails and stare back at him. He speaks as a man possessed, "They say that an emotional upheaval, like," Harry swallows, "like falling in love, can change your Patronus to match someone else's."

Draco shifts restlessly beside him, "Harry, I get the feeling that, are we...were we a bit more than friends before the accident?"

Harry mind reels. _Yes, we're more than friends. We're enemies. We're arch nemeses. We aren't even friends in the first place!_

"I, yes, we're...no! I don't..." Harry wraps his fingers in his own hair, "I don't really know..."

And he doesn't. Because Draco's happiest memory is flying out of the Room of Requirement clinging to Harry's back and Draco's Patronus is a stag and Harry's chest feels like it's collapsing in on itself with the anguish and turmoil of it all. Had Draco been in love with him? For how long? It wasn't likely to've happened in the past week, so Draco must have been yearning after him for what, years? He turns his head slowly toward Draco as the Patronuses disappear and finds he's closed the distance between them.

Draco tentatively reaches up to cup Harry's jaw and Harry feels as though he's lost control of his body, forced to watch whatever is about to unfold as a spectator. Draco is tilting his head to the side and leaning in millimeter by millimeter and Harry can't move, can't speak. The developments of the last five minutes are sapping all of Harry's processing power and he can't react. What Harry expects to be a kiss turns into hot breath on his ear and Draco's whispering to him, "I've seen the way you look at me, the way you touch me, the way you let me touch you. Merlin, I've _heard_ you, calling my name when you think I'm sleeping. We're lovers, aren't we?" he licks the shell of Harry's ear and Harry shivers, "We're gay lovers and everyone hates us for it, so you hoped I wouldn't remember," Draco's breath moves across his jaw "but I _want_ to remember."

And it isn't right. It's too much for Harry. Too much is changing too fast. He has to put a stop to it before it gets any worse than he's already let it. Harry steps back and leaves Draco clutching at thin air, "There wasn't an accident."

Draco quirks an eyebrow at him, "But...I don't remember. I'm not faking. And I'm _not_ wrong about us," he steps back up to Harry and reaches toward his face, but Harry bats his hand away.

"Stop it, Draco. You wouldn't be doing this if you remembered. We aren't even friends!"

"What? What do you mean?" Draco holds his wrist in front of himself like it's been bitten.

 _What have I done? I've...I've bloody well used him as a little fucking_ plaything _. I've hurt him so much, so many times, and I can't take it back, any of it. I've..._ And he feels it, his heartbeat quickening, his chest tightening, panic consuming him. He sees the cold, glazed eyes of his mentors and friends and supporters looking back at him from the floor of the Great Hall. He trains his wand on Draco and backs away. Sirius points a desiccated finger at him from across the room, "Is that my robe?" He hears himself scream and sees Draco moving toward him. _If I have to remember..._ Time is slowing down. His vision is narrowing. _...so should he._ Despite his violent trembling, he manages to fire off a spell directly into Draco's forehead.

"Reminiscio!"

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I named the un-Obliviate spell that Harry uses "Reminiscio" after the latin word "reminiscor" (which means "remember" or "recollect") and added the "-io" ending because it seemed to fit in with other counterspells (like the Engorgio/Reducio pair) and utility spells (like Accio and Ascendio).


	9. Survival

Draco blinks his eyes open, dimly aware of his surroundings, but acutely aware of the sharp throbbing at his temples. _Merlin, my head._ Muffled sobbing is coming from somewhere nearby. He leans up on his elbows in search of the source of the disturbance and finds someone with dark hair kneeling at the foot of his bed and crying into crossed arms. 

The griever's head lifts up at Draco's movements, revealing a tear-streaked face. A broken sob, "Draco?"

At his name, it all comes rushing back at once. Draco's head feels as though it will split down the center and he shrieks in white-hot agony. A rejected handshake on the train, Harry Potter joining the ranks of Gryffindor, a growing rivalry turned obsession masked with insults and scowls, his father in Azkaban and the Dark Mark on his arm as penance, the pain and loneliness of the impossible errand to murder Dumbledore, the Battle of Hogwarts and an undeserved rescue, the Malfoy trials and Potter's testimonies, his father's murder and his mother's suicide, his solitary mourning, and finally six days of ignorance and bliss.

As the flashes of memory subside, Draco finds himself crumpled into a tight ball on the floor next to the bed. His heart beats a frenzied, painful rhythm behind his eyes and he clutches at his ears in a futile attempt to drown it out. He feels the tips of Harry's fingers brush his shoulder. 

"Draco? Do you— you remem— member?" Harry hiccoughs.

Draco is shaking his head almost involuntarily. _This is not possible. This cannot be real. There has been some mistake. I am hallucinating._ "THIS IS _NOT_ REAL!" 

Draco explodes up from the ground and sends Harry tumbling backward in surprise. He forces his feet to move in reverse across the room despite the pounding in his head. When he is far enough from Harry's prostrate form that he won't be able to attempt a Side-Along, Draco Apparates.

Draco's haste to escape and compromised mental state result in a twisting splinch around his left thigh. He collapses to the ground at his destination, unable to maintain consciousness against the maelstrom of pain, misery, and abject humiliation threatening to consume him to his very core.

~*~

Draco comes to in a sticky pool of his own blood. As he tries to move, the excruciating tug of an open wound rips a scream from his throat. He is grievously injured and needs immediate medical attention, that much is clear. Using every crumb of remaining awareness not usurped by the ache in his thigh, he scans his surroundings. He sighs in relief. _I've made it back, then._

The peeling walls and dry-rotting floor of the abandoned cabin he has been using as a safe house stare back at him. His shelf of potions seems to mock him from the farthest corner of the room. Draco braces himself for what will undoubtedly be the most difficult three meters he has ever traveled and rolls onto his uninjured hip. He can't help but scream again and must rest before beginning the torturous crawl to his Healing supplies. _I deserve this_ , he reminds himself.

By the time Draco has dragged himself close enough to reach the slender phial of Blood-Replenishing Potion he needs, his cheeks are wet and his throat is hoarse. He whimpers as he stretches his arm up to the shelf and retrieves the potion. His vision is growing blurry. He has mere moments before he passes out again, never to wake up. With as much care as he can muster, Draco removes the stopper and tries to keep the tremor in his hand from wasting the precious liquid on the floor. He can barely see. Everything hurts. He lifts the open phial to his lips and as soon as he swallows the contents he losses consciousness again.

~*~

Draco's eyes flutter open and he is on his back staring up at the water-stained ceiling of his safe house. He cringes, aware once again of the gaping splinch that wraps around his leg. A bulky bottle of lavender liquid labeled "For Deep Wounds" is mercifully within his reach and he gingerly wraps his fingers around it, trying to move as little as possible, lest he further excite his injury. The fabric of his trousers has been splinched open along with his leg and he leans up on one elbow to apply the elixir. Draco pulls the cork out of the bottle with his teeth and winces as he pours it over his wounded skin. He lays back down, eyes tightly shut and teeth grinding together, as the mixture sizzles into new flesh and covers over the oozing gashes.

 _You pathetic little fool, you should have simply let yourself die just then. Such a waste of good potions on someone so utterly worthless_ , chides a voice in his head. It sounds like his father's. Or perhaps Voldemort's. Or even a repugnant mingling of the two.

He recites the last line of his mother's suicide note in his head for perhaps the thousandth time since he had fled their shared flat all those months ago. _Keep living for me, Draco, and find the warm, safe place I failed to provide you in life._

Draco begins to weep and feels as though he will never be able to stop.

~*~


	10. Animal

Several hours later, Draco is numb. He has lapsed into an oversensitized inability to continue crying. As he sits up and pulls his knees into his chest, his stomach complains of being empty. Draco realizes dully that if he wants to eat then he needs to leave the cabin, since his food stores will likely have gone dodgy in the last six days. _Six days spent frolicking about with Harry Potter like a fool._ He cringes at himself and tamps the thought down.

Draco stands and crosses to a window, opening it to look farther outside. The sun is just peeking over the horizon. He should wait a bit longer until the day has begun, or there won't be much in the way of food to scavenge in the first place. He fingers his recovered wand where it is nestled in a pocket of his (or rather Regulus') robes. At least now he'll be able to cast some preservative spells, rather than living day to day as he had been doing.

Draco busies himself for a moment casting a few cleaning charms on himself and the enormous bloodstain left on the floor. _Merlin, that's better._ He considers his time spent without wand or running water, being forced to hop nude into an absolutely frigid stream nearby if he wanted a bath and to launder his own clothing to almost null results. The only thing he'd managed wandless was potion brewing, always his forte, and no book that he'd found contained a recipe for a "Bath-in-a-Bottle Potion" or a "Potion of Laundering." Draco beams in satisfaction as he cleanses the entirety of his much depleted wardrobe and changes into a button up and comfortable trousers. He carefully hides Regulus' robes under one of the floorboards, where he hides everything he can't quite bear to part with, but can't quite bear to look at either. A creamy white envelope adorned with "My darling Draco" in his mother's neat script catches his eye before he can shut the concealed niche and he could almost cry again. He jams the plank of wood back in place as quickly as his aching muscles will allow.

If he'll be leaving the cabin, Draco has a decision to make: with a potion or without. He lifts his wand and basks in the ability to float his stock of Invisibility Potion over to be inspected rather than manually picking it up like a common Muggle. _If only I'd had the presence of mind to check for my wand a few hours ago, I might have saved myself a fair bit of difficulty_ , he laments. Once the Invisibility Potion glides into his hand, Draco gives the flask a shake. _Mm, quite low._ He should save it in case of emergency until he can brew more. Without a potion it is, then.

Draco's shoulders sag. With a potion certainly would have been easier and less physically taxing after nearly dying, but there's nothing else for it. And he hadn't spent months learning how to do it with nothing but books to guide him just to let being absolutely shattered stop him up now. He breaths out a long-suffering sigh and promptly shrinks into an eagle with sandy colouring and piercing grey eyes. Draco ruffles his feathers and flutters to the windowsill before taking flight.

As he swoops through the air, his mind begins to wander. First, he remembers that he'll need to restock his potion stores eventually. He'll have to make another trip later on as he can only hold so much in his talons and food is most certainly the current priority. Then, he considers that it might be nice to pick up a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ while he's at it and read about how much nicer the world is for everyone else now that he and his ilk are out of commission. He attempts to sigh, but it comes out as a gentle sort of cooing instead. Finally, he laments the form his Patronus took, and the audience he'd had when he finally managed to produce one. _Why couldn't it have just been a bloody eagle?_ Draco's self-depricating laugh comes out as a squawk and he scolds himself internally, _You_ know _why, and so does he, now._

Draco had thought 12 Grimmauld Place deserted when, at the peak of his loneliness and desperation, he'd decided to punish himself by visiting. He'd wanted to pay his respects at the sanctum of the oft condemned and ever present foes of Voldemort's Death Eaters, the Order of the Pheonix. He'd heard so much of them sniped across that hellish table at the Manor and found it ironic that they chose such a bastion of Pureblood superiority for their stronghold. What he hadn't known was that none other than the illustrious Savior of the Wizarding World had taken up residence there, or that Harry would be prone to binning his rubbish the Muggle way. How could Draco have taken such an appalling risk, knowing that his mother's dying wish had been for him to survive? He closes his eyes and tries to push the thought to the back of his mind. He's got the rest of his wretched life to feel like a disgrace in every fathomable sense of the word.

Spotting the Muggle bakery he has come to frequent, he lands smartly outside the front door and knocks his beak against the glass. 

The owner startles behind the counter and then a broad, ingraciating smile spreads across his face. He drops the newspaper he was reading and rushes over to the door to pull it open, "All right, Goldie? You gave ol' Ed a right bloody scare, ya did! Hadn't seen ya in so long, I thought you'd gone and died on me, ya gorgeous thing! Don't you worry, I've got a whole pile of goodies stocked up for ya!"

The door swings closed with a jingle and Ed rushes off into the kitchens, returning with arms brimming full of loaves of day-old bread. He shoves awkwardly through the door and spreads the loaves out on one of the tables sat on the pavement outside the bakery, "Go on then! Have your fill!"

Patiently, Draco inclines his head toward Ed and allows himself to be stroked along the feathers of his back. For the months spent living in the cabin, this tender gesture had been the only physical contact he had received from another living creature, and he had grown strangely accustomed to it, despite how patronizing it had been in the beginning (as was the moniker "Goldie"). Draco squawks in acknowledgement and then proceeds to fill his stomach with bread.

Once he can eat no more, Draco digs his talons into as many additional loaves as a five kilogram bird of prey can reasonably carry and takes off back toward the cabin to delighted whooping from Ed below.

~*~

After tucking in back at the cabin with his stomach returned to human size, Draco casts a preservation charm on the rest of the bread. With his hunger sated, the true depths of his exhaustion become rapidly apparent. He moves to sit on the edge of the thin cot he uses as a bed and shrugs his shirt off over his head without even unbuttoning it all the way. He reaches habitually under the cot for a vial of Dreamless Sleep Potion when the movement strikes him odd. Something is missing.

Draco looks down at his extended forearm and a harsh snicker distorts his features. _A glamour charm._ He cancels the charm with a quick incantation, revealing the Dark Mark overlaid on a crosshatch of thin white scars and scabby cuts. Draco grimaces. No amount of magic or cutting and carving could rid him of the blemish. It always reacquainted itself with the contours of the newly hewn skin, shimmering and writhing and perfectly recognizable. Draco had the feeling that even if he were to amputate his arm, the mark would still hang like smoke in the air below the resulting stump. 

Draco reclines back on the cot, Dreamless Sleep Potion wrapped tightly in his fingers. He suddenly longs to be getting comfortable between the comparatively luxurious sheets of Regulus' bed, stomach full of Kreacher's sublime cooking, and mind full of Harry's magnanimous grin. _Harry fucking Potter._

"Why couldn't he have just bloody killed me instead?"

_Keep living for me, Draco._

Draco imagines his mother kissing him softly on the forehead and his eyes sting. He curls in on himself and takes a gulp of the liquid in his hand so he doesn't have to think anymore.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Draco looking something like [this](http://www.iyufera.com/data/photos/1278_1tawny_eagle_b.jpg) when he transforms, except, of course, for the color of his eyes.


	11. Words

The next morning, Draco can't help himself anymore. He feels like it's been an eternity since he's read it, so he crouches next to his hidden stash of memories and retrieves his mother's suicide note from under Regulus' robes. He sits back on his haunches and removes it from its envelope, being careful not the crease or mark it in any way. He swallows thickly and reads silently to himself:

> My darling Draco,
> 
> As I am sure you must know, your father's death in Azkaban was no accident and I fear the same fate awaits us both. I know I shall not see forgiveness in my lifetime, but you are young. Perhaps, one day, you will be welcomed back into wizarding society with open arms, as the blameless child-victim of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's ruthless agenda that you truly are.
> 
> I want you to run, Draco. Violating your parole means nothing if the alternative is being murdered where you sleep. Do not return to the Manor. Do not return here. Do not look back. Take only what you need, and run.
> 
> I take my own life today so that you do not have to see my beaten and broken body thinly veiled under magical concealment in my casket. I choose to die on my own terms and I take full responsibility for my actions. Your father and I did what we thought was best for you, but that does not erase the fact that we were so terribly and irrevocably wrong. I will never forgive myself for the magnitude of my failure as your mother.
> 
> Know that I love you, unconditionally and forever. Remember my love for you as you read this letter and choose your own terms for how to move forward. Keep living for me, Draco, and find the warm, safe place I failed to provide you in life.
> 
> Love eternally,  
>  Mother

Draco rears back as a tear threatens to fall from the bottom of his chin onto the delicate parchment resting in his hands below. He'd left the very night he'd found her. He didn't even know if she'd gotten a proper funeral or how long before anyone had...discovered... A whimper escapes his lips. He folds the letter with reverence and slides it back into its envelope before nestling it under Regulus' robes. As he does so, a magazine clipping loses its static cling to the fabric in Draco's hand and drifts down to the floor. He picks up the fragment of parchment after stowing the garments and sees that it includes a picture of Harry, saved from his interview for _The Quibbler_.

Draco remembers why he'd saved this particular article; Harry had a tendency to look so downtrodden in every picture ever taken of him. He would be frowning, looking sadly down or away from the camera, or outright trying to escape his more photogenic companions. He was almost never smiling, and when he was, the forced nature of the expression betrayed itself at the corners of his eyes and in his slightly furrowed brow. The Harry from the image in his lap doesn't look necessarily happy, but he at least appears satisfied, rather than frustrated or weary, and his features are set in a confident determination that appealed to Draco when he'd first seen the story being passed around at Hogwarts. A small smirk plays on Draco's lips as he rakes his eyes over this most damning of evidence he'd kept hidden on his person in Voldemort's presence for so long.

As he sets the clipping next to his mother's final correspondence, Draco is reminded of the second time he'd learned (for seemingly the first time) that he was motherless, of the way he'd clung to Harry and Harry had held him and they had grieved together for the lost. "He cried for you," Draco says as he gingerly rests his fingers at the still visible corner of his mother's letter, "He mourned you, and, if no one else, _he_ forgave you."

Draco slides the niche shut again, wipes his eyes, and sets his hands on his knees. He tries to recall the feeling of Harry's palms soothing into his back and Harry's warmth against him. He wishes silently for Harry to walk up beside him, squeeze his shoulder with a steadying grip, and wrap a blanket around the entirety of his bleak existence. He neither moves nor speaks for a very long time.

~*~

Once he's feeling up to it again, Draco's immediate task is to procure the necessary ingredients for both Blood-Replenishing Potion and Invisibility Potion, as well as some other odds and ends. He doesn't have the dexterity necessary to gather a collection of potentially breakable objects together for travel as "Goldie the Eagle" without a bag to assist him, and carrying a bag comes with certain risks when one is trying to appear more like your standard, run-of-the-mill eagle than an unregistered Animagus faffing about town. Thankfully, the sun is about to set, which will provide him at least some modicum of cover.

Because the nearest wizarding village is quite a bit farther than Ed's Muggle bakery, he Apparates onto a rocky outcrop overlooking the village before transforming and taking flight, bag in talon.

After ascertaining that the windows are dark, Draco flies down the chimney of a home he knows to contain a well stocked pantry and fills his bag as quickly and silently as possible. He notices a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ sitting on a nearby table and takes it as well, gathering it in his beak and dropping it in the bag along with the various other filched phials and items. When he's satisfied with the haul, he flutters up to the chimney with the bag in his beak and climbs the rest of the way outside with his talons. On the roof, he hunches down behind the chimney, transforms back into a human, and Apparates to the cabin.

While unpacking the ingredients and organizing them into their places next to his cauldron, Draco takes notice of what appears to be his name in bold print on the front page of the _Daily Prophet_. Mildly fascinated, he pulls the folded newspaper from the bag and takes a closer look. The title of an article on the bottom half of the front page reads:

> **Aurors Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger Lead Manhunt for Renegade Draco Malfoy**

Draco's eyes widen. Was he seen? No, couldn't be. He'd only just ventured outside in human form. _And why would they send the other two thirds of the Golden Trio? Unless—_ He unfolds the parchment and reads the headline:

> **Hero Harry Potter Catatonic at St Mungo's: Death Eater Draco Malfoy Thought Responsible**

Draco realizes the horrifying extent of the mistake he's made, of the risk he's taken, of the unnecessary danger he's put himself in. He wants to yell. He wants to run. He does neither. Instead, Draco neatly folds the newspaper and sets it down on the counter. He reaches for the scalpel beside his cauldron and rolls up his sleeve. _I will_ never _be forgiven._

~*~


	12. Window

Alarmed into a manic whirlwind by what he had seen in the _Daily Prophet_ , Draco spends the next few days casting protective charms around the cabin, brewing massive quantities of Invisibility Potion, and rationing his remaining bread so that he won't have to venture outside for as long as possible. Draco also spends a fair chunk of time torn between savoring the six days he spent with Harry and pretending to himself that he had only ever dreamed them. On the morning that he eats the last morsel of the last loaf of brioche, he decides he should probably be fully informed before leaving the relative security of his safe house. _Curse Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration!_ He digs the newspaper from where he's hidden it behind a shelf and snaps it flat to read.

The news stories are just as awful as he expected them to be. Kreacher had found Harry unresponsive next to a heap of mangled flesh and blood and called the authorities. After discovering that Harry had been harboring a known Death Eater who had violated his strict parole, they inferred that 1) Draco had revealed himself as an assassin, 2) Draco and Harry had dueled, 3) Draco had fled, and, in the process of fleeing, 4) Draco had splinched himself because of injuries sustained during the duel. Harry was taken to St Mungo's, where he remained in a catatonic state despite no evident hexes, curses, or magical signatures. Weasley and Granger had taken their confidant's case immediately, but feared that they would find Draco dead, if at all, because of the evident severity of the splinch he had sustained at the scene.

Draco sets the parchment down and shakes his head in dismay. Had he cast on Harry? Not with his wand, since it had been stowed carefully in his robes (for which he likely has Kreacher to thank). Perhaps he'd done something akin to wild magic, hitting Harry with a burst of emotional tumult that left him comatose. Would Harry ever wake up? Draco covers his face with his hands and moans softly to himself.

"What have I done?"

Gripped by a moment of frenzy, Draco whips out his wand and forces it against the bloodied bandages around his left forearm. The tip of the wand heats and the fabric smolders until it's burnt through. Draco hisses between clenched teeth as the pain builds. When he can no longer stand it, he tosses his wand aside and hunches over himself, cradling his arm to his chest and sobbing.

~*~

While Draco's off getting the bread, he lets Ed pet him for an embarrassingly long time, grateful that birds don't actually have tear ducts. He must look quite melancholy for an eagle, though, because Ed gives him some of the fresh pastries in addition to the day-old loaves, including an absolutely divine cheese danish that lifts Draco's spirits, if only slightly. 

Draco fusses needlessly over sorting and preserving the bread as a way to distract himself from his insatiable thirst to know if Harry is alright. Unfortunately, it would be inconceivable to attempt a visit to St Mungo's and that leaves only the terrifying prospect of getting near enough to other wizards to grab a copy of the day's _Prophet_ without being seen, heard, smelled, sensed or otherwise apprehended. _Oh, it's no trouble, Draco, honestly. You're only the Ministry's most_ fucking _wanted!_

He dithers about in an attempt to postpone the trip, cleaning the cabin, rearranging potion ingredients, changing his bandages, but his curiosity eventually wins over his dread. Draco takes a long draught of Invisibility Potion and, before he can think better of it, Apparates to the rocky outcrop. 

Hoping for the shortest possible incursion into hostile territory, Draco sneaks to the outskirts of town (constantly checking that he _still_ cannot see himself) and covertly grabs the first discarded newspaper he sees. He would normally reserve Invisibility Potion for much more than a single copy of the _Daily Prophet_ , such as he'd done for a stack of heavy books on Animagi, but desperate times call for desperate measures. After verifying the date and tucking the parchment into his shirt, he sneaks away to where the crack of his disappearance won't be noticed and Apparates back to the cabin.

" **Harry Potter Awakens Calling For Justice** " the headline blares at Draco as he unfolds the newspaper in front of him and sits on the edge of his cot. 

The word "awakens" fills Draco with immediate relief, but the "calling for justice" part mops it all back up again. The article is adorned with a frightening picture of Harry struggling against his restraints in a hospital room and screaming Draco's name with a visceral fury. Draco shies away from the parchment in his hands. Harry's frothing portrait reminds Draco of reading about the manhunt for Sirius Black, the way Sirius had seemed so utterly mad in photos, but had in fact been wrongly imprisoned and was perfectly sane. Perhaps the same is true for Harry, but then again it is Draco who is on the run, and he is most assuredly _not_ sane. 

Draco looks back at the newspaper and thinks of posing in front of a mirror with Harry while they were wearing Sirius' and Regulus' old things. How he longs to trade that brief fantasy for this bitter reality. 

Deciding that the description of Harry out for his blood can most certainly wait, he scans the next title:

> **The Suffering Savior of the Wizarding World: Depression, Anxiety, and Post-Traumatic Stress**

Draco looks up from the parchment with a perplexed expression on his face. Funny, Harry hadn't seemed up to all that in Draco's presence. He'd seemed perfectly well-adjusted for someone who'd just Obliviated his ex-Death Eater schoolyard rival and was subsequently entertaining him as a house guest. Draco shuffles the pages of the _Daily Prophet_ to get a less rumpled view of the article and reads:

> 
>          The Auror investigation into Harry Potter's unusual condition reveals that the true toll of being enlisted into a war at the age of 11 is more mental than physical. When asked about his condition, friends and neighbors of Potter painted the picture of a tortured, lonely boy forced to grow up too fast.
>          Hermione Granger, a long-time friend and constant bedside companion of Potter's at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, was heard telling Healing staff, "I've never seen [Potter] like this, even during his worst panic episodes." When asked about her comment, Granger elaborates, "He's been through a lot, more than any of us could ever possibly understand. You wouldn't expect him to come out chipper and carefree, would you?" She declined further comment.
>          "[Potter] was getting better and now this. It's Malfoy that's done it, no question. Aside from joining up with the Death Eaters and trying to kill Dumbledore, he was always tormenting the three of us, but Harry most of all," says Ronald Weasley, another long time friend of Potter's and the lead Auror assigned to discover the whereabouts of known Death Eater Draco Malfoy. When asked about the investigation, Weasley explains, "Hermione and I, we'll find him. We'll bring that [expletive deleted] to justice!"
>          Adalbert Fratley, who lives across the street from Potter, provides a startling window into Potter's day-to-day struggle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, "There's times you can hear [Potter] out on the pavement screaming his [expletive deleted] head off down the block, before that elf of his reigns him back in. It's the worst at night when you're trying to [expletive deleted] sleep!"
>          Potter's house elf, Kreacher, would not elaborate on these events, saying only that, "Master Harry is a hero and he deserves to be treated like one," before forcibly removing our correspondent from the room.
>          While few would disagree with Kreacher's sentiment, the question remains: How could the wizarding populous, who owe so much to Potter, have allowed him to suffer in silence for so long?

Draco's eyes sting and he can feel his chin wobbling. He'd always believed Harry to be this untouchable supernatural being, far removed from the concerns and ailments of the rest of wizarding society. That he could be suffering so similarly to Draco...he'd never even considered it. A series of fat tears slap the surface of the parchment and Draco wipes his eyes.

 _All you ever do is cry and hide. You will always be alone, and rightly so, because you are so_ absurdly _pathetic!_ come the mingling voices of his father and Voldemort.

Draco thinks of his scalpel across the room, but then the memory of being wrapped in Harry's arms chases the thought away. "Harry cries, too," he tells the voice with as much authority as he can muster, "and he _killed_ you!"

~*~


	13. Resignation

The _Daily Prophet_ articles placate Draco with the knowledge that Harry has at least awakened and will likely recover, with the help of his mobilized friends and numerous supporters, from whatever harm Draco had or had not brought upon him. However, the front-page headline in particular also convinces him that no one will _ever_ forgive Draco Malfoy, known Death Eater and renegade parole violator, for any of his myriad sins regardless. 

As there is nothing else for it, Draco takes several days preparing himself to spend the rest of his life alone occupying an abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere. _Perhaps inventing potions_ , he thinks to himself, _and keeping copious, orderly notes for other wizards to find some day in the distant future...hopefully when no one even remembers what a Death Eater is anymore._

Draco visits Ed daily, much to Ed's delight, and stockpiles an impressive assortment of breads, pastries, and even a few odd apples. He also fulfills his wishlist of advanced academic books on potions, made a much easier endeavor with the ability to cast both the Invisibility and Hover Charms on said books. On one of his last trips to gather the final entries in a long list of potion ingredients, Draco catches sight of a discarded _Witch Weekly_ with his last name on the cover. He snatches it up suspiciously and reads:

> **The Malfoy Heir's Scandalous Secret: Childhood Friend Pansy Parkinson Tells All**

Draco audibly yelps, invisibility and stealth flying out the window for a moment. He instantly knows to what "scandalous secret" the article refers. Pansy had known since third year that he had little interest in the fairer sex, after an absolutely horrid attempted snog. He'd tried to convince her that it was simply her lack of kissing skills, but she had been too sly for him. She hadn't told anyone else, but instead blackmailed him to act as though they were an item. She was probably trying to cash in on her story now that it was timely. Draco drags his palm over his face. The last thing he needs is _another_ thing to feel foolish about.

The largest cover title tugs Draco's attention away from his public humiliation only to amplify it a hundredfold:

> **Heroic Heartthrob's Forbidden Fling: Death Eater or Heart Breaker?**

_It's a grand thing I'll likely never be prancing about in the public eye again._ Draco covers his eyes with his hand in overwhelming embarrassment, but peeks out from between his fingers to verify that he'd read the series of unbelievable words correctly. He had hidden the depths of his obsession with Harry from everyone, including Pansy. It hadn't been too difficult considering how absurd such a fascination would seem to anyone but him. But here it was in the tabloids. Draco loses himself for a moment in the resignation he feels associated with Harry, resigned to not be his friend, resigned for him to not be a Slytherin, resigned not to smile at him, not to touch him, not to taste him, resigned to fighting a bloody _war_ against him. But after all of it, when he'd been resigned to die, Harry had still seen fit to catch his hand in the Room of Requirement. And when he'd been resigned to giving up, Harry had taken Draco in and showed him that, with all the blood politics and Dark Marks stripped away, they might have been something more than enemies. He sighs. _Harry Potter._

Draco realizes belatedly that the cover photo is actually of Harry in profile, nearly unrecognizable because of the obvious doctoring and apparent age of the portrait, perhaps taken in their sixth year. _See, catching a good snap of Harry Potter is nigh impossible, even for the professionals_ , Draco agrees with himself. Impassively, the Harry in the portrait turns to face out of the page with hooded eyes and parted lips. When Harry bites his bottom lip and demurs, Draco's face heats. He shoves the magazine away into his bag, trying and failing to compose himself as he finishes with his errand.

~*~

After he's returned to the cabin, gotten his potion stock in order, and nibbled a bit of bread, Draco sheepishly retrieves the _Witch Weekly_ and flops down on his cot with his wand as a reading light. He skips over Pansy's interview, which he already knows will be unbearably mortifying to read, and instead finds the feature on Harry's love life. Additional thoroughly doctored images of Harry behaving very uncharacteristically (that is, smiling and posing for a camera) greet him from the pages of the article, which vapidly examines the pros and cons of himself and Ginny Weasley as potential life partners for Harry.

Draco reads with interest about Harry's break with the Weaselette and is a bit relieved to discover that she is not, in fact, dead, but that Harry had simply changed too much after the war for them to pursue a serious relationship. Draco is struck again by how little difference he had noticed between pre- and post-war Harry. Admittedly, Draco had seen less than a week with the post-war version, but he'd seemed the Harry Draco remembered, just with the ruse that they were Slytherin dorm-mates and friends overlaid upon their rivalry.

When he arrives at the section on himself, Draco is taken aback. Rather than speaking of their Hogwarts days, the article expounds upon the six days Draco had spent at 12 Grimmauld Place, although in very limited detail. Much of the article seemed to be extrapolated from Draco's recently revealed sexuality ( _Thank you_ ever _so much, Pansy..._ ) and the idea that Draco had not been wholly unwelcome in Harry's home. The author reasons that Harry is crying out for Draco in the hospital not because he wants justice, but because he wants Draco to come back and believes him splinched to death. _Very nearly so._ Draco rubs his left thigh and feels the ripples of the marred flesh under his fingers. 

Draco sets the magazine aside and takes a moment to parse everything. What if it were true? What if Harry was indeed aching for Draco in the same way Draco had ached for him for what felt like forever? What if Harry indeed thought Draco dead? What would Harry do right now if Draco appeared before him with a few new scars, but entirely alive? If only he weren't the tip top of the DMLE's most wanted list, he could Apparate and find out. He sighs as his fingers bump into a particularly poorly healed chuck of leg.

 _What would Harry think of these scars?_ he wonders to himself as he idly follows the lines of the splinch and looks at the mess of scar tissue under the Dark Mark. _Harry'd certainly been fascinated by what he'd done to my chest._ Draco imagines Harry's fingers tracing along the middle of his largest scar and hums in satisfaction as he unbuttons his shirt and mimics the movement.

Harry's eyes had spent quite a fair amount of time raking over Draco's exposed flesh once he'd started leaving off his shirt at night. He'd seen the interest lurking behind Harry's casual glances in his direction. _What if he was watching me right now?_

Draco moans at the thought and rucks his shirt out of his trousers so that he can shrug it the rest of the way off. He imagines Harry encouraging him.

_"Yes, strip for me, Draco. Let me see your beautiful scars. Let me see where I marked you as mine."_

Draco moans again as he rubs his hands along his sides down to his hipbones and hears his fabricated Harry sighing.

_"Yes, touch yourself for me, Draco."_

Reaching for his zip, Draco pants out "Nox" and plunges the cabin into concealing darkness.

~*~


	14. Messages

Draco is startled from his reading a few days later by one of his many protective charms indicating something attempting to cross the perimeter he's set. _Likely another fox or hedgehog or something._ He looks out the nearest window and, upon seeing nothing amiss, takes to looking out the front door. A small ball of light passes painlessly into his chest and he clutches at the impact site. Motion in his periphery causes Draco to pivot in place and draw his wand at the offending...owl?

An absolutely minuscule owl hovers about five meters away from the cabin. It takes a running (flapping?) start and is held back from advancing any closer by Draco's safety measures. Draco notices a slender parcel dangling from one of its tiny legs.

_Impossible!_ What was that light? Who could possibly know he was here? Who would send him a letter in the first place? Draco vacillates between terror, disbelief, and curiosity for a few moments as he watches the owl continue to struggle against his protective charms. As is usually the case, his curiosity wins the day and he cancels some of the charms to let the little mail carrier through.

The owl careens across the perimeter and tumbles into the grass at Draco's feet, obviously not expecting the barrier to have disappeared so suddenly. Draco unties the envelope, which reads in a messy scrawl:

> Draco BLOODY Malfoy  
>  wherever the bastard is hiding  
>  somewhere terrible probably, the world  
> 

Draco looks down at the owl, who simply puffs his chest with pride and waits for Draco to open the letter. Bewildered, Draco cracks the flap at a corner with his index finger and tries to peek inside. No spells immediately sear his flesh or incapacitate him, so he works the rest of the flap free and pulls out a missive in the same scrawl:

> Thought you might want to know. Hermione's idea, not mine. Don't say I never did anything for you. 
> 
> If you aren't dead give Pigwidgeon something to eat.
> 
> You're a right twat and I still hate you,  
>  RW  
> 

In a sort of daze, Draco looks down at Pigwidgeon again. He holds up a finger and goes inside to retrieve an apple, which he then inserts into the owl's waiting beak. A muffled hoot and Pigwidgeon's off, flying unsteadily away with the apple barely held aloft in front of him.

Draco sits down on the threshold and reads Weasley's message again, trying to process. He notices a newspaper clipping still nestled within the envelope and unfolds it carefully:

> **'Save Our Savior!' Aurors Offer Amnesty**
>     
>     
>          Investigations into the supposed attack on Harry Potter by Draco Malfoy have revealed a very different chain of events than originally—

All of a sudden his gaze is drawn by a flickering light in the sky. As it draws nearer, Draco can make out the shape of an otter within the glow.

The little wispy creature sails through the air and lands on his knee. Granger's voice issues from its mouth, "I can't be sure this message will find you. Honestly, I'm not even sure you're alive, but I had to try for Harry's sake. I've seen his memories of your recent time together. Come back. He needs you. He won't stop calling your name."

The otter pauses and looks like it's trying not to cry. Granger's voice becomes shaky and thick, "I'm having him send you a message as well. Just, please, be alive to hear this!"

The otter evaporates into nothing. Draco doesn't even have time to process as another blue-white collection of light rushes toward him, this time a— AN EAGLE?!

Draco lifts his left arm without thinking and the eagle lands squarely on the Dark Mark. It settles its wings, Harry's hopeless, monotone voice issuing from its beak, "Draco, please come home. Don't let me've killed you, Draco. Please come home. No more death. I can't take it. Please come home, Draco. I can't have killed you. Please, Draco, please just _come home_."

The eagle disappears as well and Draco lowers his arm slowly. _What's happened just now?_ He blinks. _Am I awake?_ He blinks again. _Come home?_ He moves to stand. _Forgiveness? An eagle?_

_Harry thinks he's killed me!_

_I can_ save _Harry Potter!_

Draco's wand seems to take control, ushering his hand to capture its handle and spurring him to cast what appears to be the answer to all of his deepest wishes. He doesn't even speak the words before a cone of light flares from the tip of his wand and a stag is blinking back at him. He whispers into the stag's ear, "12 Grimmauld Place, today, right now," and Disapparates.

~*~


	15. Clarity

Draco paces around Harry's sitting room and clutches at his scalp in a tense grip, his overlong mane jutting out at odd angles through his fingers. He has enough time to question himself for his rash behavior, having let down his wards and sent his Patronus without a second thought. Was this a mistake? Had it been a trap? Granger had never seemed the type, and Weasley probably would have been a bit more civil in his letter if it was to be a trick of some sort, but still. Draco didn't know whether it would be Harry or a team of Aurors ready to cart him off to Azkaban who would arrive at any moment. His nervous energy builds as the seconds tick by and his fingers tighten painfully in his hair of their own accord.

A loud crack sounds from up the stairs. Draco rushes to the banister and clings to it like a lifeline. Rapid footsteps and Harry barrels into view, skidding to a stop on the landing above. They spot one another and for a fraction of a second neither moves a muscle. Then it all happens at once. Draco rounds the banister and Harry half-jumps half-levitates down the stairs, slams his hands into Draco's chest, and careens them both into the wall behind them with his momentum. 

The back of Draco's head thumps against solid wood and it might have hurt, but what does it matter when Harry is sucking at the base of his neck and running his hands down Draco's sides? Draco keens and turns to lick the shell of Harry's ear, earning him his name moaned into the crook of his neck.

Another loud crack and Draco and Harry both freeze. Two sets of footsteps and two familiar voices approach them coming up the stairs.

"Harry? Come on, mate. We leave you to a kip and this is the thanks we get?!" Weasley strolls into view with Granger right behind.

"Are you here, Harry? Oh!" Granger gasps into her hand.

Harry half-laughs, half-growls against Draco's collarbone, "A little privacy, please?"

Weasley makes a gagging sound and covers his eyes with his hand, "Cor, so it's all true? Now _I'm_ the one who needs Obliviating."

Granger clears her throat, "Tomorrow, then. I'll hold them off until tomorrow. That's all I can promise you before the whole of wizarding media demand a press conference or something similar," she grabs Weasley's arm and smiles knowingly at Draco. Draco manages to mouth "Thank you" and Granger inclines her head slightly just before Disapparating.

Capitalizing on the brief interruption, Harry pants into Draco's ear, "How long, Draco?"

Draco shivers at the hot breath tickling his skin and sighs against Harry's scalp. He knows exactly what Harry is asking and his reply is breathy and wanton, "Fourth year? Third year? Maybe earlier. Merlin, I can't remember _not_ feeling like this, even without my memories—"

Harry groans and slides his fingers into Draco's luxurious tresses, pulling him into a searing kiss. Draco's mind overloads, flooding with recollections of all the stolen, private moments spent imagining this exact instant, wishing for Harry's lips on his and withering under the resignation that he would never know their taste. He responds by pulling Harry against him at the hips and cataloging every sensation, Harry's stubble prickling his cheeks, Harry's scent surrounding him, Harry's tongue begging entrance against his lower lip. Draco parts his lips and arches into Harry as he deepens the kiss. He's never wanted anything more in his entire life than for this experience to never end. _And it doesn't have to_ , Draco reminds himself, _because it's_ real _this time._

Harry gently skates his fingers down along Draco's jaw and throat to the collar of his shirt before leaning back without breaking the kiss and starting in on the buttons. Draco helps him by rucking his shirt out of his trousers and leaning up so Harry can push the fabric off his shoulders to pool on the floor at their feet.

Harry breaks away and his gaze lingers along the contours of Draco's chest until it falls to his left forearm. Harry sucks in a breath and grabs Draco's wrist.

"Draco..."

Harry whispers his name so softly that he could have imagined it. Draco looks away because there it is, inescapable and omnipresent. He squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for Harry to pull away, revolted by the brand and the scars and Draco's weakness manifested so indelibly on his body forever. Instead, he feels Harry lift his arm and bestow a tender press of his lips upon the very center of the Dark Mark. Harry lets go of his wrist and soothes his hand down Draco's arm. When Draco meets his eyes, there is nothing but reverence waiting for him.

Harry draws his wand and touches it to the scar on his forehead. He pulls his hair back and lets his wand drop to the floor with a clatter. Draco watches as a crosshatch of white marks and scabs mirroring those on his arm swim into view over Harry's signature lightning bolt. The realization dawning on him, Draco launches himself back into feverishly kissing Harry, only pausing to hoist Harry's grubby t-shirt off over his head before diving back in. 

"You are so, mm, fucking beautiful," Harry sighs between kisses, "I just, ah, I wish I'd seen it, mm, before now." He accentuates the admission by grinding his hips against Draco's and growling into his mouth at the contact.

Draco moans as Harry moves against him. His cock is aching to be touched and the friction under layers of fabric isn't nearly enough. Desperate for more, Draco fumbles between them to unfasten his fly, but Harry grabs his hands to stop him.

"Let me," Harry makes quick work of sliding Draco's trousers down his hips and taking him in hand. As Harry starts to stroke, Draco melts into the previously unattainable pleasure he is now somehow deemed worthy to receive. Harry's other hand latches onto Draco's throat and tilts his chin away for better access to his chest. Draco gasps under the pressure of Harry's fingers against his thrumming heartbeat as Harry leans in to drag his tongue along the longest of the scars.

Draco can't help himself from crying out, caught between Harry's hand on this prick, Harry's grip around his neck, and Harry's mouth on his chest, "Yes, Harry," he swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing across Harry's palm, "please!"

Harry groans and ups the pace of his strokes, "Let me make this up to you," he sucks hard just next to Draco's breastbone, "by giving you some different marks to remember."

Draco keens at the sharp suction on his skin combined with the growing heat between his legs and touches Harry wherever he can, sliding a hand into Harry's mop of hair and gripping his hip to hold him there, keep him close, feel him forever. Harry bites down on one of the bruising blooms he's just left and that's what Draco needs. He lets out another strangled cry as he spills into Harry's hand. Harry cups his jaw and returns to kissing him as Draco rides his orgasm, finally slumping his forehead against Harry's shoulder. As he comes back to himself, Draco knows exactly how he wants to reciprocate.

Wrapping an arm around Harry's waist, Draco spins them around so that it's Harry's back against the wall and then drops to his knees. The impact with the wall forces a huff of breath from Harry that turns into a groan as Draco nimbly rids Harry of his denims and wraps his fingers around Harry's overhard prick. 

While he'd thought of it endlessly, Draco'd never actually gotten up to much of anything, but the flash of nervousness is consumed almost instantly by want. Thinking of Harry's attention to his scars and how nice the swirl of his tongue had felt along his skin, Draco licks up the length of Harry's cock. Harry hisses and his hands shoot into Draco's thoroughly mussed hair, "God, Draco, fuck! Please let this be real!" 

The reaction emboldens Draco with a heady confidence. _Harry wants, too._ Draco licks once more from base to tip and sucks the head of Harry's cock into his mouth. He begins experimenting with how much of Harry he can take in at once, tentatively at first and faster as he learns his limits. All the while an almost constant stream of filth tumbles from Harry's panting lips, urging Draco to go faster and telling him inarticulately how obscenely wonderful his mouth and tongue feel. Once he's established a steady rhythm, Draco lets his fingers trail teasing caresses along Harry's stomach and hips, causing Harry to buck into his mouth, nearly choking him. Draco's eyes water and he tries not to cough, but he finds he rather likes the sensation of Harry thrusting into his mouth, so he continues running his fingers along Harry's skin.

"Fuck, Draco, this is—!" 

Harry's hands fist more thoroughly into Draco's hair and he moans around Harry's cock at the pulling thrill along his scalp. The vibration from Draco's throat seems to send Harry over the edge and Draco's mouth fills with the salty flavor of Harry's climax. Harry's hands drop to his shoulders as he steadies himself. Draco looks up at him and as soon as Harry's eyes focus on him, Draco swallows.

Harry pulls Draco to standing, "You are...bloody well incredible."

"Surprised, are you?"

"Yeah, actually. I thought you'd died! Why'd you leave?"

Draco shrugs, "Because I'm an idiot."

That magnanimous smile spreads across Harry's face, "Fancy coming to live here with me?"

"You're asking me a question like that after what we've just done?" Draco rolls his eyes and shoves Harry playfully, "Of course, you bloody prat!"

~*~

A while later, after they've showered, wrapped themselves in the comfort of their pyjamas, and demolished a tray of tea and finger sandwiches from Kreacher, Harry and Draco relax on the couch together. Draco is sprawled across the cushions with his head in Harry's lap, and Harry sits twirling locks of Draco's hair around his fingers. Harry lets out a contented sigh.

Draco absently traces a pattern along Harry's thigh, unable to banish from his mind the last remaining dredges of worry that he'll be snapped back to some bitter reality at any moment, "Harry, tell me this is real. Tell me this is happening. Tell me I'm not just dreaming of you again and I'll wake up cold and alone in the morning."

Harry's hand untangles itself from a twist of hair to stroke along Draco's back. "We survived, Draco. You and I, we're surviving, right now, together. I've never felt more sure on anything in my entire life. We're real. We're not dreaming. We're 'The Boys Who Survived,'" he chuckles as he kneeds along Draco's spine.

Draco snickers briefly, but a small frown pulls at the corner of his lips, "Promise me."

Harry leans down and kisses him on his temple, "You're my clarity, Draco, so I promise you, you won't be cold and alone in the morning, not if I have anything to say about it."

And that was it. Everything wasn't suddenly fixed and mended and perfect. There were still plenty of people out there who would think Harry Imperioused or would want Draco executed. They would face scrutiny for every aspect of their relationship and constant media coverage because of who they both were. But for the moment, none of that mattered. Draco had found his warm, safe place. The rest could wait until tomorrow.

~*~


	16. Epilogue - Goldie

"What? Why are you going on about this 'briefcase'?"

"That's how they do it in Muggle movies. I think people like getting money in briefcases. Makes them feel important."

Harry opens the briefcase on the ground between them and checks that the Muggle money is neatly stacked before shutting it up again and collecting it under his arm.

"Alright, there we are. Get into costume, then."

Draco rolls his eyes just before he transforms. He takes off in the direction of Ed's bakery and Harry follows after him out of the alley on foot. Once Draco lands outside the door, he looks back to see if Harry is nearby and raps his beak on the glass. Harry steps up behind him and Draco makes a show of fluttering to sit on Harry's shoulder as Ed bursts through the door.

"Goldie! This time, for sure, I thought you'd be out rotting in the woods somewheres! Weeks, it's been! But surprise, surprise, here ya are at long last! And look, you've got yerself a friend!"

Draco shifts on Harry's shoulder and squawks in acknowledgement.

"Oi, come on, Draco, that pinches."

"Draco, is it? So that's her name."

"Oh, erm, Draco's a boy eagle, but yeah, that's his name!"

Draco nips at Harry's ear, trying to remind him about their intentions for coming around. 

"Ouch, alright already," Harry bats at Draco, "Anyway, I'm Harry, Draco's...er...owner, and I just wanted to thank you for looking after him for so long. He's told me he visited your shop almost every day for months."

Ed haltingly shakes Harry's extended hand, "He's...told you?"

Draco wants to cover his face with his palm, so he opts for flapping his wings and screeching as the eagle alternative, hoping to derail further Animagus-adjacent conversation.

Harry seems to take the hint, "Right, anyway, here. Take it as payment for saving my...pet's life. I thought he was dead, too, and he probably would be without you."

Ed takes the briefcase and opens it on one of the nearby tables, "But...this is...this looks to be _thousands_ of pounds!"

Draco and Harry are already back in the alley by the time Ed looks up from his astonishment.

Harry laughs, "See, I told you it'd seem a bit much to a Muggle."

"Better too much than too little. I'm still a Malfoy, after all. Can't be caught skimping on bread, can I?"

Harry shrugs in acknowledgement, "Suit yourself." A mischeivous smirk reaches all the way up to Harry's eyebrows as he raises them incredulously, "More to the point, _Goldie_?"

"Kindly shut it, _Potter_."

Harry holds his hands up in mock-innocence and then loops his arm through Draco's where he stands arms akimbo, "You're adorable."

"And you're a git," Draco kisses Harry's cheek.

Draco smiles as Harry mouths "Goldie" once more before they Disapparate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that! I hope you enjoyed reading this cathartic piece of art therapy that's gotten me through a really rough couple of weeks. Please leave a comment with your thoughts, and thank you to everyone who was so patient and encouraging!
> 
> If you are reading this, you are wonderful and I hope your crush texts you really soon! <3 <3 <3


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